Theodicy Part 13

143. It is also not impossible that there was a time when the western [213]

or Celtic princes made themselves masters of Greece, of Egypt and a good part of Asia, and that their cult remained in those countries. When one considers with what rapidity the Huns, the Saracens and the Tartars gained possession of a great part of our continent one will be the less surprised at this; and it is confirmed by the great number of words in the Greek and German tongues which correspond so closely. Callimachus, in a hymn in honour of Apollo, seems to imply that the Celts who attacked the Temple at Delphi, under their Brennus, or chief, were descendants of the ancient t.i.tans and Giants who made war on Jupiter and the other G.o.ds, that is to say, on the Princes of Asia and of Greece. It may be that Jupiter is himself descended from the t.i.tans or Theodons, that is, from the earlier Celto-Scythian princes; and the material collected by the late Abbe de la Charmoye in his _Celtic Origins_ conforms to that possibility. Yet there are opinions on other matters in this work by this learned writer which to me do not appear probable, especially when he excludes the Germani from the number of the Celts, not having recalled sufficiently the facts given by ancient writers and not being sufficiently aware of the relation between the ancient Gallic and Germanic tongues. Now the so-called Giants, who wished to scale the heavens, were new Celts who followed the path of their ancestors; and Jupiter, although of their kindred, as it were, was constrained to resist them. Just so did the Visigoths established in Gallic territory resist, together with the Romans, other peoples of Germania and Scythia, who succeeded them under Attila their leader, he being at that time in control of the Scythian, Sarmatic and Germanic tribes from the frontiers of Persia up to the Rhine. But the pleasure one feels when one thinks to find in the mythologies of the G.o.ds some trace of the old history of fabulous times has perhaps carried me too far, and I know not whether I shall have been any more successful than Goropius Beca.n.u.s, Schrieckius, Herr Rudbeck and the Abbe de la Charmoye.

144. Let us return to Zoroaster, who led us to Oromasdes and Arimanius, the sources of good and evil, and let us a.s.sume that he looked upon them as two eternal principles opposed to each other, although there is reason to doubt this a.s.sumption. It is thought that Marcion, disciple of Cerdon, was of this opinion before Manes. M. Bayle acknowledges that these men used lamentable arguments; but he thinks that they did not sufficiently [214]

recognize their advantages or know how to apply their princ.i.p.al instrument, which was the difficulty over the origin of evil. He believes that an able man on their side would have thoroughly embarra.s.sed the orthodox, and it seems as though he himself, failing any other, wished to undertake a task so unnecessary in the opinion of many people. 'All the hypotheses' (he says, _Dictionary_, v., 'Marcion', p. 2039) 'that Christians have established parry but poorly the blows aimed at them: they all triumph when they act on the offensive; but they lose their whole advantage when they have to sustain the attack.' He confesses that the 'Dualists' (as with Mr.

Hyde he calls them), that is, the champions of two principles, would soon have been routed by _a priori_ reasons, taken from the nature of G.o.d; but he thinks that they triumph in their turn when one comes to the _a posteriori_ reasons, which are taken from the existence of evil.

145. He treats of the matter with abundant detail in his _Dictionary_, article 'Manichaeans', p. 2025, which we must examine a little, in order to throw greater light upon this subject: 'The surest and clearest ideas of order teach us', he says, 'that a Being who exists through himself, who is necessary, who is eternal, must be single, infinite, all powerful, and endowed with all kinds of perfections.' This argument deserves to have been developed more completely. 'Now it is necessary to see', he goes on, 'if the phenomena of nature can be conveniently explained by the hypothesis of one single principle.' I have explained it sufficiently by showing that there are cases where some disorder in the part is necessary for producing the greatest order in the whole. But it appears that M. Bayle asks a little too much: he wishes for a detailed exposition of how evil is connected with the best possible scheme for the universe. That would be a complete explanation of the phenomena: but I do not undertake to give it; nor am I bound to do so, for there is no obligation to do that which is impossible for us in our existing state. It is sufficient for me to point out that there is nothing to prevent the connexion of a certain individual evil with what is the best on the whole. This incomplete explanation, leaving something to be discovered in the life to come, is sufficient for answering the objections, though not for a comprehension of the matter.

146. 'The heavens and all the rest of the universe', adds M. Bayle, 'preach the glory, the power, the oneness of G.o.d.' Thence the conclusion [215]

should have been drawn that this is the case (as I have already observed above) because there is seen in these objects something entire and isolated, so to speak. Every time we see such a work of G.o.d, we find it so perfect that we must wonder at the contrivance and the beauty thereof: but when we do not see an entire work, when we only look upon sc.r.a.ps and fragments, it is no wonder if the good order is not evident there. Our planetary system composes such an isolated work, which is complete also when it is taken by itself; each plant, each animal, each man furnishes one such work, to a certain point of perfection: one recognizes therein the wonderful contrivance of the author. But the human kind, so far as it is known to us, is only a fragment, only a small portion of the City of G.o.d or of the republic of Spirits, which has an extent too great for us, and whereof we know too little, to be able to observe the wonderful order therein. 'Man alone,' says M. Bayle, 'that masterpiece of his Creator among things visible, man alone, I say, gives rise to great objections with regard to the oneness of G.o.d.' Claudian made the same observation, unburdening his heart in these well-known lines:

_Saepe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem_, etc.

But the harmony existing in all the rest allows of a strong presumption that it would exist also in the government of men, and generally in that of Spirits, if the whole were known to us. One must judge the works of G.o.d as wisely as Socrates judged those of Herac.l.i.tus in these words: What I have understood thereof pleases me; I think that the rest would please me no less if I understood it.

147. Here is another particular reason for the disorder apparent in that which concerns man. It is that G.o.d, in giving him intelligence, has presented him with an image of the Divinity. He leaves him to himself, in a sense, in his small department, _ut Spartam quam nactus est ornet_. He enters there only in a secret way, for he supplies being, force, life, reason, without showing himself. It is there that free will plays its game: and G.o.d makes game (so to speak) of these little G.o.ds that he has thought good to produce, as we make game of children who follow pursuits which we secretly encourage or hinder according as it pleases us. Thus man is there like a little G.o.d in his own world or _Microcosm_, which he governs [216]

after his own fas.h.i.+on: he sometimes performs wonders therein, and his art often imitates nature.

_Jupiter in parvo c.u.m cerneret aethera vitro,_ _Risit et ad Superos talia dicta dedit:_ _Huccine mortalis progressa potentia, Divi?_ _Jam meus in fragili luditur orbe labor._ _Jura poli rerumque fidem legesque Deorum_ _Cuncta Syracusius transtulit arte Senex._ _Quid falso insontem tonitru Salmonea miror?_ _Aemula Naturae est parva reperta ma.n.u.s._

But he also commits great errors, because he abandons himself to the pa.s.sions, and because G.o.d abandons him to his own way. G.o.d punishes him also for such errors, now like a father or tutor, training or chastising children, now like a just judge, punis.h.i.+ng those who forsake him: and evil comes to pa.s.s most frequently when these intelligences or their small worlds come into collision. Man finds himself the worse for this, in proportion to his fault; but G.o.d, by a wonderful art, turns all the errors of these little worlds to the greater adornment of his great world. It is as in those devices of perspective, where certain beautiful designs look like mere confusion until one restores them to the right angle of vision or one views them by means of a certain gla.s.s or mirror. It is by placing and using them properly that one makes them serve as adornment for a room. Thus the apparent deformities of our little worlds combine to become beauties in the great world, and have nothing in them which is opposed to the oneness of an infinitely perfect universal principle: on the contrary, they increase our wonder at the wisdom of him who makes evil serve the greater good.

148. M. Bayle continues: 'that man is wicked and miserable; that there are everywhere prisons and hospitals; that history is simply a collection of the crimes and calamities of the human race.' I think that there is exaggeration in that: there is incomparably more good than evil in the life of men, as there are incomparably more houses than prisons. With regard to virtue and vice, a certain mediocrity prevails. Machiavelli has already observed that there are few very wicked and very good men, and that this causes the failure of many great enterprises. I find it a great fault in historians that they keep their mind on the evil more than on the [217]

good. The chief end of history, as also of poetry, should be to teach prudence and virtue by examples, and then to display vice in such a way as to create aversion to it and to prompt men to avoid it, or serve towards that end.

149. M. Bayle avows: 'that one finds everywhere both moral good and physical good, some examples of virtue, some examples of happiness, and that this is what makes the difficulty. For if there were only wicked and unhappy people', he says, 'there would be no need to resort to the hypothesis of the two principles.' I wonder that this admirable man could have evinced so great an inclination towards this opinion of the two principles; and I am surprised at his not having taken into account that this romance of human life, which makes the universal history of the human race, lay fully devised in the divine understanding, with innumerable others, and that the will of G.o.d only decreed its existence because this sequence of events was to be most in keeping with the rest of things, to bring forth the best result. And these apparent faults in the whole world, these spots on a Sun whereof ours is but a ray, rather enhance its beauty than diminish it, contributing towards that end by obtaining a greater good. There are in truth two principles, but they are both in G.o.d, to wit, his understanding and his will. The understanding furnishes the principle of evil, without being sullied by it, without being evil; it represents natures as they exist in the eternal verities; it contains within it the reason wherefore evil is permitted: but the will tends only towards good.

Let us add a third principle, namely power; it precedes even understanding and will, but it operates as the one displays it and as the other requires it.

150. Some (like Campanella) have called these three perfections of G.o.d the three primordialities. Many have even believed that there was therein a secret connexion with the Holy Trinity: that power relates to the Father, that is, to the source of Divinity, wisdom to the Eternal Word, which is called _logos_ by the most sublime of the Evangelists, and will or Love to the Holy Spirit. Well-nigh all the expressions or comparisons derived from the nature of the intelligent substance tend that way.

151. It seems to me that if M. Bayle had taken into account what I have just said of the principles of things, he would have answered his own questions, or at the least he would not have continued to ask, as he does in these which follow: 'If man is the work of a single principle [218]

supremely good, supremely holy, supremely powerful, can he be subject to diseases, to cold, heat, hunger, thirst, pain, grief? Can he have so many evil tendencies? Can he commit so many crimes? Can supreme goodness produce an unhappy creature? Shall not supreme power, united to an infinite goodness, shower blessings upon its work, and shall it not banish all that might offend or grieve?' Prudentius in his _Hamartigenia_ presented the same difficulty:

_Si non vult Deus esse malum, cur non vetat? inquit._ _Non refert auctor fuerit, factorve malorum._ _Anne opera in vitium sceleris pulcherrima verti,_ _c.u.m possit prohibere, sinat; quod si velit omnes_ _Innocuos agere Omnipotens, ne sancta voluntas_ _Degeneret, facto nec se ma.n.u.s inquinet ullo?_ _Condidit ergo malum Dominus, quod spectat ab alto,_ _Et pat.i.tur fierique probat, tanquam ipse crearit._ _Ipse creavit enim, quod si discludere possit,_ _Non abolet, longoque sinit gra.s.sarier usu._

But I have already answered that sufficiently. Man is himself the source of his evils: just as he is, he was in the divine idea. G.o.d, prompted by essential reasons of wisdom, decreed that he should pa.s.s into existence just as he is. M. Bayle would perchance have perceived this origin of evil in the form in which I demonstrate it here, if he had herein combined the wisdom of G.o.d with his power, his goodness and his holiness. I will add, in pa.s.sing, that his _holiness_ is nothing other than the highest degree of goodness, just as the crime which is its opposite is the worst of all evil.

152. M. Bayle places the Greek philosopher Melissus, champion of the oneness of the first principle (and perhaps even of the oneness of substance) in conflict with Zoroaster, as with the first originator of duality. Zoroaster admits that the hypothesis of Melissus is more consistent with order and _a priori_ reasons, but he denies its conformity with experience and _a posteriori_ reasons. 'I surpa.s.s you', he said, 'in the explanation of phenomena, which is the princ.i.p.al mark of a good system.' But, in my opinion, it is not a very good explanation of a phenomenon to a.s.sign to it an _ad hoc_ principle: to evil, a _principium malefic.u.m_, to cold, a _primum frigidum_; there is nothing so easy and nothing so dull. It is well-nigh as if someone were to say that the [219]

Peripatetics surpa.s.s the new mathematicians in the explanation of the phenomena of the stars, by giving them _ad hoc_ intelligences to guide them. According to that, it is quite easy to conceive why the planets make their way with such precision; whereas there is need of much geometry and reflexion to understand how from the gravity of the planets, which bears them towards the sun, combined with some whirlwind which carries them along, or with their own motive force, can spring the elliptic movement of Kepler, which satisfies appearances so well. A man incapable of relis.h.i.+ng deep speculations will at first applaud the Peripatetics and will treat our mathematicians as dreamers. Some old Galenist will do the same with regard to the faculties of the Schoolmen: he will admit a chylific, a chymific and a sanguific, and he will a.s.sign one of these _ad hoc_ to each operation; he will think he has worked wonders, and will laugh at what he will call the chimeras of the moderns, who claim to explain through mechanical structure what pa.s.ses in the body of an animal.

153. The explanation of the cause of evil by a particular principle, _per principium malefic.u.m_, is of the same nature. Evil needs no such explanation, any more than do cold and darkness: there is neither _primum frigidum_ nor principle of darkness. Evil itself comes only from privation; the positive enters therein only by concomitance, as the active enters by concomitance into cold. We see that water in freezing is capable of breaking a gun-barrel wherein it is confined; and yet cold is a certain privation of force, it only comes from the diminution of a movement which separates the particles of fluids. When this separating motion becomes weakened in the water by the cold, the particles of compressed air concealed in the water collect; and, becoming larger, they become more capable of acting outwards through their buoyancy. The resistance which the surfaces of the proportions of air meet in the water, and which opposes the force exerted by these portions towards dilation, is far less, and consequently the effect of the air greater, in large air-bubbles than in small, even though these small bubbles combined should form as great a ma.s.s as the large. For the resistances, that is, the surfaces, increase by the _square_, and the forces, that is, the contents or the volumes of the spheres of compressed air, increase by the _cube_, of their diameters. Thus it is _by accident_ that privation involves action and force. I have already shown how privation is enough to cause error and malice, and [220]

how G.o.d is prompted to permit them, despite that there be no malignity in him. Evil comes from privation; the positive and action spring from it by accident, as force springs from cold.

154. The statement that M. Bayle attributes to the Paulicians, p. 2323, is not conclusive, to wit, that free will must come from two principles, to the end that it may have power to turn towards good and towards evil: for, being simple in itself, it should rather have come from a neutral principle if this argument held good. But free will tends towards good, and if it meets with evil it is by accident, for the reason that this evil is concealed beneath the good, and masked, as it were. These words which Ovid ascribes to Medea,

_Video meliora proboque,_ _Deteriora sequor_,

imply that the morally good is mastered by the agreeably good, which makes more impression on souls when they are disturbed by the pa.s.sions.

155. Furthermore, M. Bayle himself supplies Melissus with a good answer; but a little later he disputes it. Here are his words, p. 2025: 'If Melissus consults the notions of order, he will answer that man was not wicked when G.o.d made him; he will say that man received from G.o.d a happy state, but that not having followed the light of conscience, which in accordance with the intention of its author should have guided him along the path of virtue, he has become wicked, and has deserved that G.o.d the supremely good should make him feel the effects of his anger. It is therefore not G.o.d who is the cause of moral evil: but he is the cause of physical evil, that is, of the punishment of moral evil. And this punishment, far from being incompatible with the supremely good principle, of necessity emanates from that one of its attributes, I mean its justice, which is not less essential to it than its goodness. This answer, the most reasonable that Melissus can give, is fundamentally good and sound, but it may be disputed by something more specious and more dazzling. For indeed Zoroaster objects that the infinitely good principle ought to have created man not only without actual evil, but also without the inclination towards evil; that G.o.d, having foreseen sin with all its consequences, ought to have prevented it; that he ought to have impelled man to moral good, and not to have allowed him any force for tending towards crime.' That is quite easy to say, but it is not practicable if one follows the principles [221]

of order: it could not have been accomplished without perpetual miracles.

Ignorance, error and malice follow one another naturally in animals made as we are: should this species, then, have been missing in the universe? I have no doubt but that it is too important there, despite all its weaknesses, for G.o.d to have consented to its abolition.

156. M. Bayle, in the article ent.i.tled 'Paulicians' inserted by him in his _Dictionary_, follows up the p.r.o.nouncements he made in the article on the Manichaeans. According to him (p. 2330, lit. H) the orthodox seem to admit two first principles, in making the devil the originator of sin. M. Becker, a former minister of Amsterdam, author of the book ent.i.tled _The World Bewitched_, has made use of this idea in order to demonstrate that one should not a.s.sign such power and authority to the Devil as would allow of his comparison with G.o.d. Therein he is right: but he pushes the conclusions too far. And the author of the book ent.i.tled [Greek: Apokatastasis Panton]

believes that if the Devil had never been vanquished and despoiled, if he had always kept his prey, if the t.i.tle of invincible had belonged to him, that would have done injury to the glory of G.o.d. But it is a poor advantage to keep those whom one has led astray in order to share their punishment for ever. And as for the cause of evil, it is true that the Devil is the author of sin. But the origin of sin comes from farther away, its source is in the original imperfection of creatures: that renders them capable of sinning, and there are circ.u.mstances in the sequence of things which cause this power to evince itself in action.

157. The devils were angels like the rest before their fall, and it is thought that their leader was one of the chief among angels; but Scripture is not explicit enough on that point. The pa.s.sage of the Apocalypse that speaks of the struggle with the Dragon, as of a vision, leaves much in doubt, and does not sufficiently develop a subject which by the other sacred writers is hardly mentioned. It is not in place here to enter into this discussion, and one must still admit that the common opinion agrees best with the sacred text. M. Bayle examines some replies of St. Basil, of Lactantius and others on the origin of evil. As, however, they are concerned with physical evil, I postpone discussion thereof, and I will proceed with the examination of the difficulties over the moral cause of moral evil, which arise in several pa.s.sages of the works of our gifted author.

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158. He disputes the _permission_ of this evil, he would wish one to admit that G.o.d _wills_ it. He quotes these words of Calvin (on Genesis, ch. 3): 'The ears of some are offended when one says that G.o.d willed it. But I ask you, what else is the permission of him who is ent.i.tled to forbid, or rather who has the thing in his own hands, but an act of will?' M. Bayle explains these words of Calvin, and those which precede them, as if he admitted that G.o.d willed the fall of Adam, not in so far as it was a crime, but under some other conception that is unknown to us. He quotes casuists who are somewhat lax, who say that a son can desire the death of his father, not in so far as it is an evil for himself but in so far as it is a good for his heirs _(Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 147, p.

850). It seems to me that Calvin only says that G.o.d willed man's fall for some reason unknown to us. In the main, when it is a question of a decisive will, that is, of a decree, these distinctions are useless: one wills the action with all its qualities, if it is true that one wills it. But when it is a crime, G.o.d can only will the permission of it: the crime is neither an end nor a means, it is only a _conditio sine qua non_; thus it is not the object of a direct will, as I have already demonstrated above. G.o.d cannot prevent it without acting against what he owes to himself, without doing something that would be worse than the crime of man, without violating the rule of the best; and that would be to destroy divinity, as I have already observed. G.o.d is therefore bound by a moral necessity, which is in himself, to permit moral evil in creatures. There is precisely the case wherein the will of a wise mind is only permissive. I have already said this: he is bound to permit the crime of others when he cannot prevent it without himself failing in that which he owes to himself.

159. 'But among all these infinite combinations', says M. Bayle (p. 853), 'it pleased G.o.d to choose one wherein Adam was to sin, and by his decree he made it, in preference to all the others, the plan that should come to pa.s.s.' Very good; that is speaking my language; so long as one applies it to the combinations which compose the whole universe. 'You will therefore never make us understand', he adds, 'how G.o.d did not will that Eve and Adam should sin, since he rejected all the combinations wherein they would not have sinned.' But the thing is in general very easy to understand, from all that I have just said. This combination that makes the whole universe is the best; G.o.d therefore could not refrain from choosing it without [223]

incurring a lapse, and rather than incur such, a thing altogether inappropriate to him, he permits the lapse or the sin of man which is involved in this combination.

160. M. Jacquelot, with other able men, does not differ in opinion from me, when for example he says, p. 186 of his treatise on the _Conformity of Faith with Reason_: 'Those who are puzzled by these difficulties seem to be too limited in their outlook, and to wish to reduce all G.o.d's designs to their own interests. When G.o.d formed the universe, his whole prospect was himself and his own glory, so that if we had knowledge of all creatures, of their diverse combinations and of their different relations, we should understand without difficulty that the universe corresponds perfectly to the infinite wisdom of the Almighty.' He says elsewhere (p. 232): 'Supposing the impossible, that G.o.d could not prevent the wrong use of free will without destroying it, it will be agreed that since his wisdom and his glory determined him to form free creatures this powerful reason must have prevailed over the grievous consequences which their freedom might have.' I have endeavoured to develop this still further through _the reason of the best and the moral necessity_ which led G.o.d to make this choice, despite the sin of some creatures which is involved therein. I think that I have cut down to the root of the difficulty; nevertheless I am well pleased, for the sake of throwing more light on the matter, to apply my principle of solution to the peculiar difficulties of M. Bayle.

161. Here is one, set forth in these terms (ch. 148, p. 856): 'Would it in a prince be a mark of his kindness: 1. To give to a hundred messengers as much money as is needed for a journey of two hundred leagues? 2. To promise a recompense to all those who should finish the journey without having borrowed anything, and to threaten with imprisonment all those whom their money should not have sufficed? 3. To make choice of a hundred persons, of whom he would know for certain that there were but two who should earn the recompense, the ninety-eight others being destined to find on the way either a mistress or a gamester or some other thing which would make them incur expenses, and which he would himself have been at pains to dispose in certain places along their path? 4. To imprison actually ninety-eight of these messengers on the moment of their return? Is it not abundantly evident that he would have no kindness for them, and that on the contrary he would intend for them, not the proposed recompense, but prison? [224]

They would deserve it, certainly; but he who had wished them to deserve it and placed them in the sure way towards deserving it, should he be worthy of being called kind, on the pretext that he had recompensed the two others?' It would doubtless not be on that account that he earned the t.i.tle of 'kind'. Yet other circ.u.mstances may contribute, which would avail to render him worthy of praise for having employed this artifice in order to know those people, and to make trial of them; just as Gideon made use of some extraordinary means of choosing the most valiant and the least squeamish among his soldiers. And even if the prince were to know already the disposition of all these messengers, may he not put them to this test in order to make them known also to the others? Even though these reasons be not applicable to G.o.d, they make it clear, nevertheless, that an action like that of this prince may appear preposterous when it is detached from the circ.u.mstances indicating its cause. All the more must one deem that G.o.d has acted well, and that we should see this if we fully knew of all that he has done.

162. M. Descartes, in a letter to the Princess Elizabeth (vol. 1, letter 10) has made use of another comparison to reconcile human freedom with the omnipotence of G.o.d. 'He imagines a monarch who has forbidden duels, and who, knowing for certain that two n.o.blemen, if they meet, will fight, takes sure steps to bring about their meeting. They meet indeed, they fight: their disobedience of the law is an effect of their free will, they are punishable. What a king can do in such a case (he adds) concerning some free actions of his subjects, G.o.d, who has infinite foreknowledge and power, certainly does concerning all those of men. Before he sent us into this world he knew exactly what all the tendencies of our will would be: he has endued us therewith, he also has disposed all other things that are outside us, to cause such and such objects to present themselves to our senses at such and such a time. He knew that as a result of this our free will would determine us toward some particular thing, and he has willed it thus; but he has not for that willed to constrain our free will thereto. In this king one may distinguish two different degrees of will, the one whereby he willed that these n.o.blemen should fight, since he brought about their meeting, and the other whereby he did not will it, since he forbade duels. Even so theologians distinguish in G.o.d an absolute and independent will, whereby he wills that all things be done just as they are done, [225]

and another which is relative, and which concerns the merit or demerit of men, whereby he wills that his Laws be obeyed' (Descartes, letter 10 of vol. 1, pp. 51, 52. Compare with that the quotation made by M. Arnauld, vol. 2, p. 288 _et seqq_. of his _Reflexions on the System of Malebranche_, from Thomas Aquinas, on the antecedent and consequent will of G.o.d).

163. Here is M. Bayle's reply to that (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 154, p. 943): 'This great philosopher is much mistaken, it seems to me. There would not be in this monarch any degree of will, either small or great, that these two n.o.blemen should obey the law, and not fight.

He would will entirely and solely that they should fight. That would not exculpate them, they would only follow their pa.s.sion, they would be unaware that they conformed to the will of their sovereign: but he would be in truth the moral cause of their encounter, and he would not more entirely wish it supposing he were to inspire them with the desire or to give them the order for it. Imagine to yourself two princes each of whom wishes his eldest son to poison himself. One employs constraint, the other contents himself with secretly causing a grief that he knows will be sufficient to induce his son to poison himself. Will you be doubtful whether the will of the latter is less complete than the will of the former? M. Descartes is therefore a.s.suming an unreal fact and does not at all solve the difficulty.'

164. One must confess that M. Descartes speaks somewhat crudely of the will of G.o.d in regard to evil in saying not only that G.o.d knew that our free will would determine us toward some particular thing, but also _that he also wished it_, albeit he did not will to constrain the will thereto. He speaks no less harshly in the eighth letter of the same volume, saying that not the slightest thought enters into the mind of a man which G.o.d does not _will_, and has not willed from all eternity, to enter there. Calvin never said anything harsher; and all that can only be excused if it is to be understood of a permissive will. M. Descartes' solution amounts to the distinction between the will expressed in the sign and the will expressive of the good pleasure (_inter voluntatem signi et beneplaciti_) which the moderns have taken from the Schoolmen as regards the terms, but to which they have given a meaning not usual among the ancients. It is true that G.o.d may command something and yet not will that it be done, as when he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son: he willed the obedience, and he did not will the action. But when G.o.d commands the virtuous action and [226]

forbids the sin, he wills indeed that which he ordains, but it is only by an antecedent will, as I have explained more than once.

165. M. Descartes' comparison is therefore not satisfactory; but it may be made so. One must make some change in the facts, inventing some reason to oblige the prince to cause or permit the two enemies to meet. They must, for instance, be together in the army or in other obligatory functions, a circ.u.mstance the prince himself cannot hinder without endangering his State. For example, the absence of either of them might be responsible for the disappearance of innumerable persons of his party from the army or cause grumbling among the soldiers and give rise to some great disturbance.

In this case, therefore, one may say that the prince does not will the duel: he knows of it, but he permits it notwithstanding, for he prefers permitting the sin of others to committing one himself. Thus this corrected comparison may serve, provided that one observe the difference between G.o.d and the prince. The prince is forced into this permission by his powerlessness; a more powerful monarch would have no need of all these considerations; but G.o.d, who has power to do all that is possible, only permits sin because it is absolutely impossible to anyone at all to do better. The prince's action is peradventure not free from sorrow and regret. This regret is due to his imperfection, of which he is sensible; therein lies displeasure. G.o.d is incapable of such a feeling and finds, moreover, no cause therefor; he is infinitely conscious of his own perfection, and it may even be said that the imperfection in creatures taken individually changes for him into perfection in relation to the whole, and that it is an added glory for the Creator. What more can one wish, when one possesses a boundless wisdom and when one is as powerful as one is wise; when one can do all and when one has the best?

166. Having once understood these things, we are hardened sufficiently, so it seems to me, against the strongest and most spirited objections. I have not concealed them: but there are some we shall merely touch upon, because they are too odious. The Remonstrants and M. Bayle (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 152, end page 919) quote St. Augustine, saying, '_crudelem esse misericordiam velle aliquem miserum esse ut eius miserearis_': in the same sense is cited Seneca _De Benef._, L. 6, c. 36, 37. I confess that one would have some reason to urge that against those who believed that G.o.d has no other cause for permitting sin than the [227]

design to have something wherewith to exercise punitive justice against the majority of men, and his mercy towards a small number of elect. But it must be considered that G.o.d had reasons for his permission of sin, more worthy of him and more profound in relation to us. Someone has dared to compare G.o.d's course of action with that of a Caligula, who has his edicts written in so small a hand and has them placarded in so high a place that it is not possible to read them; with that of a mother who neglects her daughter's honour in order to attain her own selfish ends; with that of Queen Catherine de Medicis, who is said to have abetted the love-affairs of her ladies in order to learn of the intrigues of the great; and even with that of Tiberius, who arranged, through the extraordinary services of the executioner, that the law forbidding the subjection of a virgin to capital punishment should no longer apply to the case of Seja.n.u.s's daughter. This last comparison was proposed by Peter Bertius, then an Armenian, but finally a member of the Roman communion. And a scandalous comparison has been made between G.o.d and Tiberius, which is related at length by Andreas Caroli in his _Memorabilia Ecclesiastica_ of the last century, as M. Bayle observes. Bertius used it against the Gomarists. I think that arguments of this kind are only valid against those who maintain that justice is an arbitrary thing in relation to G.o.d; or that he has a despotic power which can go so far as being able to condemn innocents; or, in short, that good is not the motive of his actions.

167. At that same time an ingenious satire was composed against the Gomarists, ent.i.tled _Fur praedestinatus, de gepredestineerdedief_, wherein there is introduced a thief condemned to be hanged, who attributes to G.o.d all the evil he has done; who believes himself predestined to salvation notwithstanding his wicked actions; who imagines that this belief is sufficient for him, and who defeats by arguments _ad hominem_ a Counter-remonstrant minister called to prepare him for death: but this thief is finally converted by an old pastor who had been dismissed for his Arminianism, whom the gaoler, in pity for the criminal and for the weakness of the minister, had brought to him secretly. Replies were made to this lampoon, but replies to satires never please as much as the satires themselves. M. Bayle (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 154, p. 938) says that this book was printed in England in the [228]

time of Cromwell, and he appears not to have been informed that it was only a translation of the much older original Flemish. He adds that Dr. George Kendal wrote a confutation of it at Oxford in the year 1657, under the t.i.tle of _Fur pro Tribunali_, and that the dialogue is there inserted. This dialogue presupposes, contrary to the truth, that the Counter-remonstrants make G.o.d the cause of evil, and teach a kind of predestination in the Mahometan manner according to which it does not matter whether one does good or evil, and the a.s.sumption that one is predestined a.s.sures the fact.

They by no means go so far. Nevertheless it is true that there are among them some Supralapsarians and others who find it hard to declare themselves in clear terms upon the justice of G.o.d and the principles of piety and morals in man. For they imagine despotism in G.o.d, and demand that man be convinced, without reason, of the absolute certainty of his election, a course that is liable to have dangerous consequences. But all those who acknowledge that G.o.d produces the best plan, having chosen it from among all possible ideas of the universe; that he there finds man inclined by the original imperfection of creatures to misuse his free will and to plunge into misery; that G.o.d prevents the sin and the misery in so far as the perfection of the universe, which is an emanation from his, may permit it: those, I say, show forth more clearly that G.o.d's intention is the one most right and holy in the world; that the creature alone is guilty, that his original limitation or imperfection is the source of his wickedness, that his evil will is the sole cause of his misery; that one cannot be destined to salvation without also being destined to the holiness of the children of G.o.d, and that all hope of election one can have can only be founded upon the good will infused into one's heart by the grace of G.o.d.

168. _Metaphysical considerations_ also are brought up against my explanation of the moral cause of moral evil; but they will trouble me less since I have dismissed the objections derived from moral reasons, which were more impressive. These metaphysical considerations concern the nature of the _possible_ and of the _necessary_; they go against my fundamental a.s.sumption that G.o.d has chosen the best of all possible worlds. There are philosophers who have maintained that there is nothing possible except that which actually happens. These are those same people who thought or could have thought that all is necessary unconditionally. Some were of this [229]

opinion because they admitted a brute and blind necessity in the cause of the existence of things: and it is these I have most reason for opposing.

But there are others who are mistaken only because they misuse terms. They confuse moral necessity with metaphysical necessity: they imagine that since G.o.d cannot help acting for the best he is thus deprived of freedom, and things are endued with that necessity which philosophers and theologians endeavour to avoid. With these writers my dispute is only one of words, provided they admit in very deed that G.o.d chooses and does the best. But there are others who go further, they think that G.o.d could have done better. This is an opinion which must be rejected: for although it does not altogether deprive G.o.d of wisdom and goodness, as do the advocates of blind necessity, it sets bounds thereto, thus derogating from G.o.d's supreme perfection.

169. The question of the _possibility of things that do not happen_ has already been examined by the ancients. It appears that Epicurus, to preserve freedom and to avoid an absolute necessity, maintained, after Aristotle, that contingent futurities were not susceptible of determinate truth. For if it was true yesterday that I should write to-day, it could therefore not fail to happen, it was already necessary; and, for the same reason, it was from all eternity. Thus all that which happens is necessary, and it is impossible for anything different to come to pa.s.s. But since that is not so it would follow, according to him, that contingent futurities have no determinate truth. To uphold this opinion, Epicurus went so far as to deny the first and the greatest principle of the truths of reason, he denied that every a.s.sertion was either true or false. Here is the way they confounded him: 'You deny that it was true yesterday that I should write to-day; it was therefore false.' The good man, not being able to admit this conclusion, was obliged to say that it was neither true nor false. After that, he needs no refutation, and Chrysippus might have spared himself the trouble he took to prove the great principle of contradictories, following the account by Cicero in his book _De Fato_: 'Contendit omnes nervos Chrysippus ut persuadeat omne [Greek: Axioma] aut verum esse aut falsum. Ut enim Epicurus veretur ne si hoc concesserit, concedendum sit, fato fieri quaecunque fiant; si enim alterum ex aeternitate verum sit, esse id etiam certum; si certum, etiam necessarium; ita et necessitatem et fatum confirmari putat; sic Chrysippus metuit ne non, si non obtinuerit omne[230]

quod enuncietur aut verum esse aut falsum, omnia fato fieri possint ex causis aeternis rerum futurarum.' M. Bayle observes (_Dictionary_, article 'Epicurus', let. T, p. 1141) 'that neither of these two great philosophers [Epicurus and Chrysippus] understood that the truth of this maxim, every proposition is true or false, is independent of what is called _fatum_: it could not therefore serve as proof of the existence of the _fatum_, as Chrysippus maintained and as Epicurus feared. Chrysippus could not have conceded, without damaging his own position, that there are propositions which are neither true nor false. But he gained nothing by a.s.serting the contrary: for, whether there be free causes or not, it is equally true that this proposition, The Grand Mogul will go hunting to-morrow, is true or false. Men rightly regarded as ridiculous this speech of Tiresias: All that I shall say will happen or not, for great Apollo confers on me the faculty of prophesying. If, a.s.suming the impossible, there were no G.o.d, it would yet be certain that everything the greatest fool in the world should predict would happen or would not happen. That is what neither Chrysippus nor Epicurus has taken into consideration.' Cicero, lib. I, _De Nat.

Deorum_, with regard to the evasions of the Epicureans expressed the sound opinion (as M. Bayle observes towards the end of the same page) that it would be much less shameful to admit that one cannot answer one's opponent, than to have recourse to such answers. Yet we shall see that M. Bayle himself confused the certain with the necessary, when he maintained that the choice of the best rendered things necessary.

170. Let us come now to the possibility of things that do not happen, and I will give the very words of M. Bayle, albeit they are somewhat discursive.