§319I have been well pleased to present and to support these arguments of M. Bayle against vague indifference, as much for the elucidation of the subject as to confront him with himself, and to demonstrate that he ought therefore not to complain of the alleged necessity imposed upon God, [319] of choosing the best way that is possible. For either God will act through a vague indifference and at random, or again he will act on caprice or through some other passion, or finally he must act through a prevailing inclination of reason which prompts him to the best. But passions, which come from the confused perception of an apparent good, cannot occur in God; and vague indifference is something chimerical. It is therefore only the strongest reason that can regulate God's choice. It is an imperfection in our freedom that makes us capable of choosing evil instead of good, a greater evil instead of the lesser evil, the lesser good instead of the greater good. That arises from the appearances of good and evil, which deceive us; whereas God is always prompted to the true and the greatest good, that is, to the absolutely true good, which he cannot fail to know.

§320This false idea of freedom, conceived by those who, not content with exempting it, I do not say from constraint, but from necessity itself, would also exempt it from certainty and determination, that is, from reason and perfection, nevertheless pleased some Schoolmen, people who often become entangled in their own subtleties, and take the straw of terms for the grain of things. They assume some chimerical notion, whence they think to derive some use, and which they endeavour to maintain by quibblings. Complete indifference is of this nature: to concede it to the will is to grant it a privilege of the kind that some Cartesians and some mystics find in the divine nature, of being able to do the impossible, to produce absurdities, to cause two contradictory propositions to be true simultaneously. To claim that a determination comes from a complete indifference absolutely indeterminate is to claim that it comes naturally from nothing. Let it be assumed that God does not give this determination: it has accordingly no fountainhead in the soul, nor in the body, nor in circumstances, since all is assumed to be indeterminate; and yet there it is, appearing and existing without preparation, nothing making ready for it, no angel, not even God himself, being able to see or to show how it exists. That would be not only the emergence of something from nothing, but its emergence thence of itself. This doctrine introduces something as preposterous as the theory already mentioned, of the deviation of atoms, whereby Epicurus asserted that one of these small bodies, going in a straight line, would turn aside all at once from its path, without any[320] reason, simply because the will so commands. Take note moreover that he resorted to that only to justify this alleged freedom of complete indifference, a chimerical notion which appears to be of very ancient origin; and one may with good reason say: Chimaera Chimaeram parit.

§321This is the way Signor Marchetti has expressed it in his admirable translation of Lucretius into Italian verse, which has not yet been published (Book 2):

Ma ch'i principii poi non corran punto Della lor dritta via, chi veder puote? Si finalmente ogni lor moto sempre Insieme s'aggruppa, e dall' antico Sempre con ordin certo il nuovo nasce; Ne tracciando i primi semi, fanno Di moto un tal principio, il qual poi rompa I decreti del fato, accio non segua L'una causa dell' altra in infinito; Onde han questa, dich' io, del fato sciolta Libera volunta, per cui ciascuno Va dove piu l'agrada? I moti ancora Si declinan sovente, e non in tempo Certo, ne certa region, ma solo Quando e dove commanda il nostro arbitrio; Poiche senz' alcun dubbio a queste cose Da sol principio il voler proprio, e quindi Van poi scorrendo per le membra i moti.

It is comical that a man like Epicurus, after having discarded the gods and all incorporeal substances, could have supposed that the will, which he himself takes as composed of atoms, could have had control over the atoms, and diverted them from their path, without its being possible for one to say how.

§322Carneades, not going so far back as to the atoms, claimed to find at once in the soul of man the reason for the so-called vague indifference, assuming as reason for the thing just that for which Epicurus sought a reason. Carneades gained nothing thereby, except that he more easily deceived careless people, in transferring the absurdity from one subject, where it is somewhat too evident, to another subject where it is easier to confuse matters, that is to say, from the body to the soul. For most philosophers had not very distinct notions of the nature of the soul. [321] Epicurus, who composed it of atoms, was at least right in seeking the origin of its determination in that which he believed to be the origin of the soul itself. That is why Cicero and M. Bayle were wrong to find so much fault with him, and to be indulgent towards, and even praise, Carneades, who is no less irrational. I do not understand how M. Bayle, who was so clear-sighted, was thus satisfied by a disguised absurdity, even to the extent of calling it the greatest effort the human mind can make on this matter. It is as if the soul, which is the seat of reason, were more capable than the body of acting without being determined by some reason or cause, internal or external; or as if the great principle which states that nothing comes to pass without cause only related to the body.

§323It is true that the Form or the Soul has this advantage over matter, that it is the source of action, having within itself the principle of motion or of change, in a word, [Greek: to autokineton], as Plato calls it; whereas matter is simply passive, and has need of being impelled to act, agitur, ut agat. But if the soul is active of itself (as it indeed is), for that very reason it is not of itself absolutely indifferent to the action, like matter, and it must find in itself a ground of determination. According to the System of Pre-established Harmony the soul finds in itself, and in its ideal nature anterior to existence, the reasons for its determinations, adjusted to all that shall surround it. That way it was determined from all eternity in its state of mere possibility to act freely, as it does, when it attains to existence.

§324M. Bayle himself remarks aptly that freedom of indifference (such as must be admitted) does not exclude inclinations and does not demand equipoise. He demonstrates amply enough (Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, ch. 139, p. 748 seqq.) that the soul may be compared to a balance, where reasons and inclinations take the place of weights. According to him, one can explain what passes in our resolutions by the hypothesis that the will of man is like a balance which is at rest when the weights of its two pans are equal, and which always inclines either to one side or the other according to which of the pans is the more heavily laden. A new reason makes a heavier weight, a new idea shines more brightly than the old; the fear of a heavy penalty prevails over some pleasure; when two passions dispute the ground, it is always the stronger which gains the mastery, unless the other be assisted by reason or by some other [322] contributing passion. When one flings away merchandise in order to save oneself, the action, which the Schoolmen call mixed, is voluntary and free; and yet love of life indubitably prevails over love of possessions. Grief arises from remembrance of lost possessions, and one has all the greater difficulty in making one's resolve, the nearer the approach to even weight in the opposing reasons, as also we see that the balance is determined more promptly when there is a great difference between the weights.

§325Nevertheless, as very often there are divers courses to choose from, one might, instead of the balance, compare the soul with a force which puts forth effort on various sides simultaneously, but which acts only at the spot where action is easiest or there is least resistance. For instance, air if it is compressed too firmly in a glass vessel will break it in order to escape. It puts forth effort at every part, but finally flings itself upon the weakest. Thus do the inclinations of the soul extend over all the goods that present themselves: they are antecedent acts of will; but the consequent will, which is their result, is determined in the direction of that which touches most closely.

§326This ascendancy of inclinations, however, does not prevent man from being master in his own domain, provided that he knows how to make use of his power. His dominion is that of reason: he has only to prepare himself in good time to resist the passions, and he will be capable of checking the vehemence of the most furious. Let us assume that Augustus, about to give orders for putting to death Fabius Maximus, acts, as is his wont, upon the advice a philosopher had given him, to recite the Greek alphabet before doing anything in the first heat of his anger: this reflexion will be capable of saving the life of Fabius and the glory of Augustus. But without some fortunate reflexion, which one owes sometimes to a special divine mercy, or without some skill acquired beforehand, like that of Augustus, calculated to make us reflect fittingly as to time and place, passion will prevail over reason. The driver is master over the horses if he controls them as he should, and as he can; but there are occasions when he becomes negligent, and then for a time he will have to let go the reins:

Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas.