Theodicy Part 21

the body by an agreeable sensation in the soul, would not have neglected to ensure that this very dissolution should serve some perfection in the body, by giving it some new relief, as when one is freed of some burden or loosed from some bond. But organic bodies of such kinds, although possible, do not exist upon our globe, which doubtless lacks innumerable inventions that G.o.d may have put to use elsewhere. Nevertheless it is enough that, due allowance being made for the place our world holds in the universe, nothing can be done for it better than what G.o.d does. He makes the best possible use of the laws of nature which he has established and (as M. Regis also acknowledged in the same pa.s.sage) 'the laws that G.o.d has established in nature are the most excellent it is possible to conceive'.

358. I will add to that the remark from the _Journal des Savants_ of the 16th March 1705, which M. Bayle has inserted in chapter 162 of the _Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_ (vol. III, p. 1030). The matter in question is the extract from a very ingenious modern book on the Origin of Evil, to which I have already referred here. It is stated: 'that the general solution in respect of physical evil which this book gives is that the universe must be regarded as a work composed of various pieces which form a whole; that, according to the laws established in nature, some parts cannot be better unless others become worse, whence would result a system less perfect as a whole. This principle', the writer goes on, 'is good; but if nothing is added to it, it does not appear sufficient. Why has G.o.d established laws that give rise to so many difficulties? philosophers who are somewhat precise will say. Could he not have established others of a kind not subject to any defects? And to cut the matter short, how comes it that he has prescribed laws for himself? Why does he not act without general laws, in accordance with all his power and all his goodness? The writer has not carried the difficulty as far as that. By disentangling his ideas one might indeed possibly find means of solving the difficulty, but there is no development of the subject in his work.'

359. I suppose that the gifted author of this extract, when he thought the difficulty could be solved, had in mind something akin to my principles on this matter. If he had vouchsafed to declare himself in this pa.s.sage, he would to all appearance have replied, like M. Regis, that the laws G.o.d established were the most excellent that could be established. He would have acknowledged, at the same time, that G.o.d could not have refrained[341]

from establis.h.i.+ng laws and following rules, because laws and rules are what makes order and beauty; that to act without rules would be to act without reason; and that because G.o.d _called into action all his goodness_ the exercise of his omnipotence was consistent with the laws of wisdom, to secure as much good as was possible of attainment. Finally, he would have said, the existence of certain particular disadvantages which strike us is a sure indication that the best plan did not permit of their avoidance, and that they a.s.sist in the achievement of the total good, an argument wherewith M. Bayle in more than one place expresses agreement.

360. Now that I have proved sufficiently that everything comes to pa.s.s according to determinate reasons, there cannot be any more difficulty over these principles of G.o.d's foreknowledge. Although these determinations do not compel, they cannot but be certain, and they foreshadow what shall happen. It is true that G.o.d sees all at once the whole sequence of this universe, when he chooses it, and that thus he has no need of the connexion of effects and causes in order to foresee these effects. But since his wisdom causes him to choose a sequence in perfect connexion, he cannot but see one part of the sequence in the other. It is one of the rules of my system of general harmony, _that the present is big with the future_, and that he who sees all sees in that which is that which shall be. What is more, I have proved conclusively that G.o.d sees in each portion of the universe the whole universe, owing to the perfect connexion of things. He is infinitely more discerning than Pythagoras, who judged the height of Hercules by the size of his footprint. There must therefore be no doubt that effects follow their causes determinately, in spite of contingency and even of freedom, which nevertheless exist together with certainty or determination.

361. Durand de Saint-Pourcain, among others, has indicated this clearly in saying that contingent futurities are seen determinately in their causes, and that G.o.d, who knows all, seeing all that shall have power to tempt or repel the will, will see therein the course it shall take. I could cite many other authors who have said the same thing, and reason does not allow the possibility of thinking otherwise. M. Jacquelot implies also (_Conformity of Faith with Reason_, p. 318 _et seqq._), as M. Bayle observes (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 142, p.

796), that the dispositions of the human heart and those of circ.u.mstances acquaint G.o.d unerringly with the choice that man shall make. M. Bayle [342]

adds that some Molinists say the same, and refers us to those who are quoted in the _Suavis Concordia_ of Pierre de S. Joseph, the Feuillant (pp.

579, 580).

362. Those who have confused this determination with necessity have fabricated monsters in order to fight them. To avoid a reasonable thing which they had disguised under a hideous shape, they have fallen into great absurdities. For fear of being obliged to admit an imaginary necessity, or at least one different from that in question, they have admitted something which happens without the existence of any cause or reason for it. This amounts to the same as the absurd deviation of atoms, which according to Epicurus happened without any cause. Cicero, in his book on Divination, saw clearly that if the cause could produce an effect towards which it was entirely indifferent there would be a true chance, a genuine luck, an actual fortuitous case, that is, one which would be so not merely in relation to us and our ignorance, according to which one may say:

_Sed Te_ _Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam, caeloque locamus,_

but even in relation to G.o.d and to the nature of things. Consequently it would be impossible to foresee events by judging of the future by the past.

He adds fittingly in the same pa.s.sage: 'Qui potest provideri, quicquam futurum esse, quod neque causam habet ullam, neque notam cur futurum sit?'

and soon after: 'Nihil est tam contrarium rationi et constantiae, quam fortuna; ut mihi ne in Deum quidem cadere videatur, ut sciat quid casu et fortuito futurum sit. Si enim scit, certe illud eveniet: sin certe eveniet, nulla fortuna est.' If the future is certain, there is no such thing as luck. But he wrongly adds: 'Est autum fortuna; rerum igitur fortuitarum nulla praesensio est.' There is luck, therefore future events cannot be foreseen. He ought rather to have concluded that, events being predetermined and foreseen, there is no luck. But he was then speaking against the Stoics, in the character of an Academician.

363. The Stoics already derived from the decrees of G.o.d the prevision of events. For, as Cicero says in the same book: 'Sequitur porro nihil Deos ignorare, quod omnia ab iis sint const.i.tuta.' And, according to my system, G.o.d, having seen the possible world that he desired to create, foresaw[343]

everything therein. Thus one may say that the _divine knowledge of vision differs from the knowledge of simple intelligence_ only in that it adds to the latter the acquaintance with the actual decree to choose this sequence of things which simple intelligence had already presented, but only as possible; and this decree now makes the present universe.

364. Thus the Socinians cannot be excused for denying to G.o.d the certain knowledge of future events, and above all of the future resolves of a free creature. For even though they had supposed that there is a freedom of complete indifference, so that the will can choose without cause, and that thus this effect could not be seen in its cause (which is a great absurdity), they ought always to take into account that G.o.d was able to foresee this event in the idea of the possible world that he resolved to create. But the idea which they have of G.o.d is unworthy of the Author of things, and is not commensurate with the skill and wit which the writers of this party often display in certain particular discussions. The author of the _Reflexion on the Picture of Socinianism_ was not altogether mistaken in saying that the G.o.d of the Socinians would be ignorant and powerless, like the G.o.d of Epicurus, every day confounded by events and living from one day to the next, if he only knows by conjecture what the will of men is to be.

365. The whole difficulty here has therefore only come from a wrong idea of contingency and of freedom, which was thought to have need of a complete indifference or equipoise, an imaginary thing, of which neither a notion nor an example exists, nor ever can exist. Apparently M. Descartes had been imbued with the idea in his youth, at the College of la Fleche. That caused him to say (part I of his _Principles_, art. 41): 'Our thought is finite, and the knowledge and omnipotence of G.o.d, whereby he has not only known from all eternity everything that is, or that can be, but also has willed it, is infinite. Thus we have enough intelligence to recognize clearly and distinctly that this power and this knowledge are in G.o.d; but we have not enough so to comprehend their extent that we can know how they leave the actions of men entirely free and indeterminate.' The continuation has already been quoted above. 'Entirely free', that is right; but one spoils everything by adding 'entirely indeterminate'. One has no need of infinite knowledge in order to see that the foreknowledge and the providence of G.o.d allow freedom to our actions, since G.o.d has foreseen those actions in [344]

his ideas, just as they are, that is, free. Laurentius Valla indeed, in his _Dialogue against Boethius_ (which I will presently quote in epitome) ably undertakes to reconcile freedom with foreknowledge, but does not venture to hope that he can reconcile it with providence. Yet there is no more difficulty in the one than the other, because the decree to give existence to this action no more changes its nature than does one's mere consciousness thereof. But there is no knowledge, however infinite it be, which can reconcile the knowledge and providence of G.o.d with actions of an indeterminate cause, that is to say, with a chimerical and impossible being. The actions of the will are determined in two ways, by the foreknowledge or providence of G.o.d, and also by the dispositions of the particular immediate cause, which lie in the inclinations of the soul. M.

Descartes followed the Thomists on this point; but he wrote with his usual circ.u.mspection, so as not to come into conflict with some other theologians.

366. M. Bayle relates (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 142, p. 804) that Father Gibieuf of the Oratory published a Latin treatise on the freedom of G.o.d and of the creature, in the year 1639; that he was met with protests, and was shown a collection of seventy contradictions taken from the first book of his work; and that, twenty years after, Father Annat, Confessor to the King of France, reproached him in his book _De Incoacta Libertate_ (ed. Rome, 1654, in 4to.), for the silence he still maintained. Who would not think (adds M. Bayle), after the uproar of the _de Auxiliis_ Congregations, that the Thomists taught things touching the nature of free will which were entirely opposed to the opinion of the Jesuits? When, however, one considers the pa.s.sages that Father Annat quoted from the works of the Thomists (in a pamphlet ent.i.tled: _Jansenius a Thomistis, gratiae per se ipsam efficacis defensoribus, condemnatus_, printed in Paris in the year 1654 in 4to.) one can in reality only see verbal controversies between the two sects. The grace efficacious of itself, according to the one side, leaves to free will quite as much power of resistance as the congruent grace of the others. M. Bayle thinks one can say almost as much of Jansenius himself. He was (so he says) an able man, of a methodical mind and of great a.s.siduity. He worked for twenty-two years at his _Augustinus_. One of his aims was to refute the Jesuits on the dogma of free will; yet no decision has yet been reached as to whether he rejects or adopts freedom of indifference. From his work innumerable pa.s.sages [345]

are quoted for and against this opinion, as Father Annat has himself shown in the work that has just been mentioned, _De Incoacta Libertate_. So easy is it to render this subject obscure, as M. Bayle says at the conclusion of this discourse. As for Father Gibieuf, it must be admitted that he often alters the meaning of his terms, and that consequently he does not answer the question in the main, albeit he often writes with good sense.

367. Indeed, confusion springs, more often than not, from ambiguity in terms, and from one's failure to take trouble over gaining clear ideas about them. That gives rise to these eternal, and usually mistaken, contentions on necessity and contingency, on the possible and the impossible. But provided that it is understood that necessity and possibility, taken metaphysically and strictly, depend solely upon this question, whether the object in itself or that which is opposed to it implies contradiction or not; and that one takes into account that contingency is consistent with the inclinations, or reasons which contribute towards causing determination by the will; provided also that one knows how to distinguish clearly between necessity and determination or certainty, between metaphysical necessity, which admits of no choice, presenting only one single object as possible, and moral necessity, which constrains the wisest to choose the best; finally, provided that one is rid of the chimera of complete indifference, which can only be found in the books of philosophers, and on paper (for they cannot even conceive the notion in their heads, or prove its reality by an example in things) one will easily escape from a labyrinth whose unhappy Daedalus was the human mind. That labyrinth has caused infinite confusion, as much with the ancients as with those of later times, even so far as to lead men into the absurd error of the Lazy Sophism, which closely resembles fate after the Turkish fas.h.i.+on. I do not wonder if in reality the Thomists and the Jesuits, and even the Molinists and the Jansenists, agree together on this matter more than is supposed. A Thomist and even a wise Jansenist will content himself with certain determination, without going on to necessity: and if someone goes so far, the error mayhap will lie only in the word. A wise Molinist will be content with an indifference opposed to necessity, but such as shall not exclude prevalent inclinations.

368. These difficulties, however, have greatly impressed M. Bayle, who[346]

was more inclined to dwell on them than to solve them, although he might perhaps have had better success than anyone if he had thought fit to turn his mind in that direction. Here is what he says of them in his _Dictionary_, art. 'Jansenius', lit. G, p. 1626: 'Someone has said that the subject of Grace is an ocean which has neither sh.o.r.e nor bottom. Perhaps he would have spoken more correctly if he had compared it to the Strait of Messina, where one is always in danger of striking one reef while endeavouring to avoid another.

_Dextrum Scylla latus, laevum implacata Charybdis_ _Obsidet._

Everything comes back in the end to this: Did Adam sin freely? If you answer yes, then you will be told, his fall was not foreseen. If you answer no, then you will be told, he is not guilty. You may write a hundred volumes against the one or the other of these conclusions, and yet you will confess, either that the infallible prevision of a contingent event is a mystery impossible to conceive, or that the way in which a creature which acts without freedom sins nevertheless is altogether incomprehensible.'

369. Either I am greatly mistaken or these two alleged incomprehensibilities are ended altogether by my solutions. Would to G.o.d it were as easy to answer the question how to cure fevers, and how to avoid the perils of two chronic sicknesses that may originate, the one from not curing the fever, the other from curing it wrongly. When one a.s.serts that a free event cannot be foreseen, one is confusing freedom with indetermination, or with indifference that is complete and in equipoise; and when one maintains that the lack of freedom would prevent man from being guilty, one means a freedom exempt, not from determination or from certainty, but from necessity and from constraint. This shows that the dilemma is not well expressed, and that there is a wide pa.s.sage between the two perilous reefs. One will reply, therefore, that Adam sinned freely, and that G.o.d saw him sinning in the possible state of Adam, which became actual in accordance with the decree of the divine permission. It is true that Adam was determined to sin in consequence of certain prevailing inclinations: but this determination destroys neither contingency nor freedom. Moreover, the certain determination to sin which exists in man does not deprive him of the power to avoid sinning (speaking generally) or, since he does sin, prevent him from being guilty and deserving [347]

punishment. This is more especially so since the punishment may be of service to him or others, to contribute towards determining them another time not to sin. There is besides punitive justice, which goes beyond compensation and amendment, and wherein also there is nothing liable to be shaken by the certain determination of the contingent resolutions of the will. It may be said, on the contrary, that the penalties and rewards would be to some extent unavailing, and would fail in one of their aims, that of amendment, if they could not contribute towards determining the will to do better another time.

370. M. Bayle continues: 'Where freedom is concerned there are only two courses to take: one is to say that all the causes distinct from the soul, and co-operating with it, leave it the power to act or not to act; the other is to say that they so determine it to act that it cannot forbear to do so. The first course is that taken by the Molinists, the other is that of the Thomists and Jansenists and the Protestants of the Geneva Confession. Yet the Thomists have clamorously maintained that they were not Jansenists; and the latter have maintained with equal warmth that where freedom was concerned they were not Calvinists. On the other hand, the Molinists have maintained that St. Augustine did not teach Jansenism. Thus the one side not wis.h.i.+ng to admit that they were in conformity with people who were considered heretics, and the other side not wis.h.i.+ng to admit that they were in opposition to a learned saint whose opinions were always considered orthodox, have both performed a hundred feats of contortion, etc.'

371. The two courses which M. Bayle distinguishes here do not exclude a third course, according to which the determination of the soul does not come solely from the co-operation of all the causes distinct from the soul, but also from the state of the soul itself and its inclinations which mingle with the impressions of the senses, strengthening or weakening them.

Now all the internal and external causes taken together bring it about that the soul is determined certainly, but not of necessity: for no contradiction would be implied if the soul were to be determined differently, it being possible for the will to be inclined, but not possible for it to be compelled by necessity. I will not venture upon a discussion of the difference existing between the Jansenists and the Reformed on this matter. They are not perhaps always fully in accord [348]

with themselves as regards things, or as regards expressions, on a matter where one often loses one's way in bewildering subtleties. Father Theophile Raynaud, in his book ent.i.tled _Calvinismus Religio Bestiarum_, wished to strike at the Dominicans, without naming them. On the other hand, those who professed to be followers of St. Augustine reproached the Molinists with Pelagianism or at the least semi-Pelagianism. Things were carried to excess at times by both sides, whether in their defence of a vague indifference and the granting of too much to man, or in their teaching _determinationem ad unum secundum qualitatem actus licet non quoad ejus substantiam_, that is to say, a determination to evil in the non-regenerate, as if they did nothing but sin. After all, I think one must not reproach any but the adherents of Hobbes and Spinoza with destroying freedom and contingency; for they think that that which happens is alone possible, and must happen by a brute geometrical necessity. Hobbes made everything material and subjected it to mathematical laws alone; Spinoza also divested G.o.d of intelligence and choice, leaving him a blind power, whence all emanates of necessity. The theologians of the two Protestant parties are equally zealous in refuting an unendurable necessity. Although those who follow the Synod of Dordrecht teach sometimes that it suffices for freedom to be exempt from constraint, it seems that the necessity they leave in it is only hypothetical, or rather that which is more appropriately termed certainty and infallibility. Thus it results that very often the difficulties only lie in the terms. I say as much with regard to the Jansenists, although I do not wish to make excuse for those people in everything.

372. With the Hebrew Cabalists, _Malcuth_ or the Kingdom, the last of the Sephiroth, signified that G.o.d controls everything irresistibly, but gently and without violence, so that man thinks he is following his own will while he carries out G.o.d's. They said that Adam's sin had been _truncatio Malcuth a caeteris plantis_, that is to say, that Adam had cut back the last of the Sephiroth, by making a dominion for himself within G.o.d's dominion, and by a.s.suming for himself a freedom independent of G.o.d, but that his fall had taught him that he could not subsist of himself, and that men must needs be redeemed by the Messiah. This doctrine may receive a good interpretation.

But Spinoza, who was versed in the Cabala of the writers of his race, and who says (_Tractatus Politicus_, c. 2, n. 6) that men, conceiving of freedom as they do, establish a dominion within G.o.d's dominion, has [349]

gone too far. The dominion of G.o.d is with Spinoza nothing but the dominion of necessity, and of a blind necessity (as with Strato), whereby everything emanates from the divine nature, while no choice is left to G.o.d, and man's choice does not exempt him from necessity. He adds that men, in order to establish what is termed _Imperium in Imperio_, supposed that their soul was a direct creation of G.o.d, something which could not be produced by natural causes, furthermore that it had an absolute power of determination, a state of things contrary to experience. Spinoza is right in opposing an absolute power of determination, that is, one without any grounds; it does not belong even to G.o.d. But he is wrong in thinking that a soul, that a simple substance, can be produced naturally. It seems, indeed, that the soul to him was only a transient modification; and when he pretends to make it lasting, and even perpetual, he subst.i.tutes for it the idea of the body, which is purely a notion and not a real and actual thing.

373. The story M. Bayle relates of Johan Bredenburg, a citizen of Rotterdam (_Dictionary_, art. 'Spinoza', lit. H, p. 2774) is curious. He published a book against Spinoza, ent.i.tled: _Enervatio Tractatus Theologico-politici, una c.u.m demonstratione geometrico ordine disposita, Naturam non esse Deum, cujus effati contrario praedictus Tractatus unice innit.i.tur_. One was surprised to see that a man who did not follow the profession of letters, and who had but slight education (having written his book in Flemish, and had it translated into Latin), had been able to penetrate with such subtlety all the principles of Spinoza, and succeed in overthrowing them, after having reduced them by a candid a.n.a.lysis to a state wherein they could appear in their full force. I have been told (adds M. Bayle) that this writer after copious reflexion upon his answer, and upon the principle of his opponent, finally found that this principle could be reduced to the form of a demonstration. He undertook therefore to prove that there is no cause of all things other than a nature which exists necessarily, and which acts according to an immutable, inevitable and irrevocable necessity. He examined the whole system of the geometricians, and after having constructed his demonstration he scrutinized it from every imaginable angle, he endeavoured to find its weak spot and was never able to discover any means of destroying it, or even of weakening it. That caused him real distress: he groaned over it and begged the most talented of his [350]

friends to help him in searching out the defects of this demonstration. For all that, he was not well pleased that copies of the book were made. Franz Cuper, a Socinian (who had written _Arcana Atheismi Revelata_ against Spinoza, Rotterdam, 1676, in 4to.), having obtained a copy, published it just as it was, that is, in Flemish, with some reflexions, and accused the author of being an atheist. The accused made his defence in the same tongue. Orobio, a very able Jewish physician (that one who was refuted by M. Limbourg, and who replied, so I have heard say, in a work posthumously circulated, but unpublished), brought out a book opposing Bredenburg's demonstration, ent.i.tled: _Certamen Philosophic.u.m Propugnatae Veritatis Divinae ac Naturalis, adversus J.B. principia, Amsterdam_, 1684. M. Aubert de Verse also wrote in opposition to him the same year under the name of Latinus Serbattus Sartensis. Bredenburg protested that he was convinced of free will and of religion, and that he wished he might be shown a possibility of refuting his own demonstration.

374. I would desire to see this alleged demonstration, and to know whether it tended to prove that primitive Nature, which produces all, acts without choice and without knowledge. In this case, I admit that his proof was Spinozistic and dangerous. But if he meant perhaps that the divine nature is determined toward that which it produces, by its choice and through the motive of the best, there was no need for him to grieve about this so-called immutable, inevitable, irrevocable necessity. It is only moral, it is a happy necessity; and instead of destroying religion it shows divine perfection to the best advantage.

375. I take this opportunity to add that M. Bayle quotes (p. 2773) the opinion of those who believe that the book ent.i.tled _Lucii Antistii Constantis de Jure Ecclesiasticorum Liber Singularis_, published in 1665, is by Spinoza. But I have reason for doubting this, despite that M.

Colerus, who has pa.s.sed on to me an account he wrote of the life of that famous Jew, is also of that opinion. The initial letters L.A.C. lead me to believe that the author of this book was M. de la Cour or Van den Hoof, famous for works on the _Interest of Holland, Political Equipoise_, and numerous other books that he published (some of them under the signature V.D.H.) attacking the power of the Governor of Holland, which was at that time considered a danger to the Republic; for the memory of Prince William the Second's attempt upon the city of Amsterdam was still quite fresh.[351]

Most of the ecclesiastics of Holland were on the side of this prince's son, who was then a minor, and they suspected M. de Witt and what was called the Lowenstein faction of favouring the Arminians, the Cartesians, and other sects that were feared still more, endeavouring to rouse the populace against them, and not without success, as the event proved. It was thus very natural that M. de la Cour should publish this book. It is true that people seldom keep to the happy mean in works published to further party interests. I will say in pa.s.sing that a French version of the _Interest of Holland_ by M. de la Cour has just been published, under the deceptive t.i.tle of _Memoires de M. le Grand-Pensionnaire de Witt_; as if the thoughts of a private individual, who was, to be sure, of de Witt's party, and a man of talent, but who had not enough acquaintance with public affairs or enough ability to write as that great Minister of State might have written, could pa.s.s for the production of one of the first men of his time.

376. I saw M. de la Cour as well as Spinoza on my return from France by way of England and Holland, and I learnt from them a few good anecdotes on the affairs of that time. M. Bayle says, p. 2770, that Spinoza studied Latin under a physician named Franz van den Ende. He tells at the same time, on the authority of Sebastian Kortholt (who refers to it in the preface to the second edition of the book by his late father, _De Tribus Impostoribus, Herberto L. B. de Cherbury, Hobbio et Spinoza_) that a girl instructed Spinoza in Latin, and that she afterwards married M. Kerkering, who was her pupil at the same time as Spinoza. In connexion with that I note that this young lady was a daughter of M. van den Ende, and that she a.s.sisted her father in the work of teaching. Van den Ende, who was also called A.

Finibus, later went to Paris, and there kept a boarding-school in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was considered excellent as an instructor, and he told me, when I called upon him there, that he would wager that his audiences would always pay attention to his words. He had with him as well at that time a young girl who also spoke Latin, and worked upon geometrical demonstrations. He had insinuated himself into M. Arnauld's good graces, and the Jesuits began to be jealous of his reputation. But he disappeared shortly afterwards, having been mixed up in the Chevalier de Rohan's conspiracy.

377. I think I have sufficiently proved that neither the foreknowledge nor the providence of G.o.d can impair either his justice or his goodness, [352]

or our freedom. There remains only the difficulty arising from G.o.d's co-operation with the actions of the creature, which seems to concern more closely both his goodness, in relation to our evil actions, and our freedom, in relation to good actions as well as to others. M. Bayle has brought out this also with his usual acuteness. I will endeavour to throw light upon the difficulties he puts forward, and then I shall be in a position to conclude this work. I have already proved that the co-operation of G.o.d consists in giving us continually all that is real in us and in our actions, in so far as it involves perfection; but that all that is limited and imperfect therein is a consequence of the previous limitations which are originally in the creature. Since, moreover, every action of the creature is a change of its modifications, it is obvious that action arises in the creature in relation to the limitations or negations which it has within itself, and which are diversified by this change.

378. I have already pointed out more than once in this work that evil is a consequence of privation, and I think that I have explained that intelligibly enough. St. Augustine has already put forward this idea, and St. Basil said something of the same kind in his _Hexaemeron_, Homil. 2, 'that vice is not a living and animate substance, but an affection of the soul contrary to virtue, which arises from one's abandoning the good; and there is therefore no need to look for an original evil'. M. Bayle, quoting this pa.s.sage in his _Dictionary_ (art. 'Paulicians', lit. D, p. 2325) commends a remark by Herr Pfanner (whom he calls a German theologian, but he is a jurist by profession, Counsellor to the Dukes of Saxony), who censures St. Basil for not being willing to admit that G.o.d is the author of physical evil. Doubtless G.o.d is its author, when the moral evil is a.s.sumed to be already in existence; but speaking generally, one might a.s.sert that G.o.d permitted physical evil by implication, in permitting moral evil which is its source. It appears that the Stoics knew also how slender is the ent.i.ty of evil. These words of Epictetus are an indication: 'Sicut aberrandi causa meta non ponitur, sic nec natura mali in mundo exist.i.t.'

379. There was therefore no need to have recourse to a principle of evil, as St. Basil aptly observes. Nor is it necessary either to seek the origin of evil in matter. Those who believed that there was a chaos before G.o.d laid his hand upon it sought therein the source of disorder. It was an opinion which Plato introduced into his _Timaeus_. Aristotle found fault with him for that (in his third book on Heaven, ch. 2) because, [353]

according to this doctrine, disorder would be original and natural, and order would have been introduced against nature. This Anaxagoras avoided by making matter remain at rest until it was stirred by G.o.d; and Aristotle in the same pa.s.sage commends him for it. According to Plutarch (_De Iside et Osiride_, and _Tr. de Animae Procreatione ex Timaeo_) Plato recognized in matter a certain maleficent soul or force, rebellious against G.o.d: it was an actual blemish, an obstacle to G.o.d's plans. The Stoics also believed that matter was the source of defects, as Justus Lipsius showed in the first book of the Physiology of the Stoics.

380. Aristotle was right in rejecting chaos: but it is not always easy to disentangle the conceptions of Plato, and such a task would be still less easy in respect of some ancient authors whose works are lost. Kepler, one of the most excellent of modern mathematicians, recognized a species of imperfection in matter, even when there is no irregular motion: he calls it its 'natural inertia', which gives it a resistance to motion, whereby a greater ma.s.s receives less speed from one and the same force. There is soundness in this observation, and I have used it to advantage in this work, in order to have a comparison such as should ill.u.s.trate how the original imperfection of the creatures sets bounds to the action of the Creator, which tends towards good. But as matter is itself of G.o.d's creation, it only furnishes a comparison and an example, and cannot be the very source of evil and of imperfection. I have already shown that this source lies in the forms or ideas of the possibles, for it must be eternal, and matter is not so. Now since G.o.d made all positive reality that is not eternal, he would have made the source of evil, if that did not rather lie in the possibility of things or forms, that which alone G.o.d did not make, since he is not the author of his own understanding.

381. Yet even though the source of evil lies in the possible forms, anterior to the acts of G.o.d's will, it is nevertheless true that G.o.d co-operates in evil in the actual performance of introducing these forms into matter: and this is what causes the difficulty in question here.

Durand de Saint-Pourcain, Cardinal Aureolus, Nicolas Taurel, Father Louis de Dole, M. Bernier and some others, speaking of this co-operation, would have it only general, for fear of impairing the freedom of man and the holiness of G.o.d. They seem to maintain that G.o.d, having given to creatures the power to act, contents himself with conserving this power. On the [354]

other hand, M. Bayle, according to some modern writers, carries the cooperation of G.o.d too far: he seems to fear lest the creature be not sufficiently dependent upon G.o.d. He goes so far as to deny action to creatures; he does not even acknowledge any real distinction between accident and substance.

382. He places great reliance especially on that doctrine accepted of the Schoolmen, that conservation is a continued creation. The conclusion to be drawn from this doctrine would seem to be that the creature never exists, that it is ever newborn and ever dying, like time, movement and other transient beings. Plato believed this of material and tangible things, saying that they are in a perpetual flux, _semper fluunt, nunquam sunt_.

But of immaterial substances he judged quite differently, regarding them alone as real: nor was he in that altogether mistaken. Yet continued creation applies to all creatures without distinction. Sundry good philosophers have been opposed to this dogma, and M. Bayle tells that David de Rodon, a philosopher renowned among those of the French who have adhered to Geneva, deliberately refuted it. The Arminians also do not approve of it; they are not much in favour of these metaphysical subtleties. I will say nothing of the Socinians, who relish them even less.

383. For a proper enquiry as to _whether conservation is a continued creation,_ it would be necessary to consider the reasons whereon this dogma is founded. The Cartesians, after the example of their master, employ in order to prove it a principle which is not conclusive enough. They say that 'the moments of time having no necessary connexion with one another, it does not follow that because I am at this moment I shall exist at the moment which shall follow, if the same cause which gives me being for this moment does not also give it to me for the instant following.' The author of the _Reflexion on the Picture of Socinianism_ has made use of this argument, and M. Bayle (perhaps the author of this same _Reflexion_) quotes it (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 141, p. 771).

One may answer that in fact it does not follow _of necessity_ that, because I am, I shall be; but this follows _naturally_, nevertheless, that is, of itself, _per se_, if nothing prevents it. It is the distinction that can be drawn between the essential and the natural. For the same movement endures naturally unless some new cause prevents it or changes it, because the reason which makes it cease at this instant, if it is no new reason, [355]

would have already made it cease sooner.

384. The late Herr Erhard Weigel, a celebrated mathematician and philosopher at Jena, well known for his _a.n.a.lysis Euclidea_, his mathematical philosophy, some neat mechanical inventions, and finally the trouble he took to induce the Protestant princes of the Empire to undertake the last reform of the Almanac, whose success, notwithstanding, he did not witness; Herr Weigel, I say, communicated to his friends a certain demonstration of the existence of G.o.d, which indeed amounted to this idea of continued creation. As he was wont to draw parallels between reckoning and reasoning--witness his Arithmetical Ethics (_rechenschaftliche Sittenlehre_)--he said that the foundation of the demonstration was this beginning of the Pythagorean Table, _once one is one_. These repeated unities were the moments of the existence of things, each one of them depending upon G.o.d, who resuscitates, as it were, all things outside himself at each moment: falling away as they do at each moment, they must ever have one who shall resuscitate them, and that cannot be any other than G.o.d. But there would be need of a more exact proof if that is to be called a demonstration. It would be necessary to prove that the creature always emerges from nothingness and relapses thither forthwith. In particular it must be shown that the privilege of enduring more than a moment by its nature belongs to the necessary being alone. The difficulties on the composition of the _continuum_ enter also into this matter. This dogma appears to resolve time into moments, whereas others regard moments and points as mere modalities of the _continuum_, that is, as extremities of the parts that can be a.s.signed to it, and not as const.i.tuent parts. But this is not the place for entering into that labyrinth.

385. What can be said for certain on the present subject is that the creature depends continually upon divine operation, and that it depends upon that no less after the time of its beginning than when it first begins. This dependence implies that it would not continue to exist if G.o.d did not continue to act; in short, that this action of G.o.d is free. For if it were a necessary emanation, like that of the properties of the circle, which issue from its essence, it must then be said that G.o.d in the beginning produced the creature by necessity; or else it must be shown how, in creating it once, he imposed upon himself the necessity of conserving it. Now there is no reason why this conserving action should not be [356]

called production, and even creation, if one will: for the dependence being as great afterwards as at the beginning, the extrinsic designation of being new or not does not change the nature of that action.

386. Let us then admit in such a sense that conservation is a continued creation, and let us see what M. Bayle seems to infer thence (p. 771) after the author of the _Reflexion on the Picture of Socinianism_, in opposition to M. Jurieu. 'It seems to me', this writer says, 'that one must conclude that G.o.d does all, and that in all creation there are no first or second or even occasional causes, as can be easily proved. At this moment when I speak, I am such as I am, with all my circ.u.mstances, with such thought, such action, whether I sit or stand, that if G.o.d creates me in this moment such as I am, as one must of necessity say in this system, he creates me with such thought, such action, such movement and such determination. One cannot say that G.o.d creates me in the first place, and that once I am created he produces with me my movements and my determinations. That is indefensible for two reasons. The first is, that when G.o.d creates me or conserves me at this instant, he does not conserve me as a being without form, like a species, or another of the Universals of Logic. I am an individual; he creates me and conserves me as such, and as being all that I am in this instant, with all my attendant circ.u.mstances. The second reason is that if G.o.d creates me in this instant, and one says that afterwards he produces with me my actions, it will be necessary to imagine another instant for action: for before acting one must exist. Now that would be two instants where we only a.s.sume one. It is therefore certain in this hypothesis that creatures have neither more connexion nor more relation with their actions than they had with their production at the first moment of the first creation.' The author of this _Reflexion_ draws thence very harsh conclusions which one can picture to oneself; and he testifies at the end that one would be deeply indebted to any man that should teach those who approve this system how to extricate themselves from these frightful absurdities.

387. M. Bayle carries this still further. 'You know', he says (p. 775), 'that it is demonstrated in the Scholastic writings' (he cites Arriaga, _Disp_. 9, Phys., sect. 6 et praesertim, sub-sect. 3) 'that the creature cannot be either the total cause or the partial cause of its conservation: for if it were, it would exist before existing, which is [357]

contradictory. You know that the argument proceeds like this: that which conserves itself acts; now that which acts exists, and nothing can act before it has attained complete existence; therefore, if a creature conserved itself, it would act before being. This argument is not founded upon probabilities, but upon the first principles of Metaphysics, _non entis nulla sunt accidentia, operari sequitur esse_, axioms as clear as daylight. Let us go further. If creatures co-operated with G.o.d (here is meant an active cooperation, and not co-operation by a pa.s.sive instrument) to conserve themselves they would act before being: that has been demonstrated. Now if they co-operated with G.o.d for the production of any other thing, they would also act before being; it is therefore as impossible for them to co-operate with G.o.d for the production of any other thing (such as local movement, an affirmation, volition, ent.i.ties actually distinct from their substance, so it is a.s.serted) as for their own conservation. Since their conservation is a continued creation, and since all human creatures in the world must confess that they cannot co-operate with G.o.d at the first moment of their existence, either to produce themselves or to give themselves any modality, since that would be to act before being (observe that Thomas Aquinas and sundry other Schoolmen teach that if the angels had sinned at the first moment of their creation G.o.d would be the author of the sin: see the Feuillant Pierre de St. Joseph, p.

318, _et seqq_., of the _Suavis Concordia Humanae Libertatis_; it is a sign that they acknowledge that at the first instant the creature cannot act in anything whatsoever), it follows manifestly that they cannot co-operate with G.o.d in any one of the subsequent moments, either to produce themselves or to produce any other thing. If they could co-operate therein at the second moment of their existence, nothing would prevent their being able to cooperate at the first moment.'