eternal intelligence in which they exist.  If we ask why anything whatever, or why just this world exists, this ultimate ground of things cannot be found within the world.  Every contingent thing or event has its cause in another.  However far we follow out the series of conditions, we never reach an ultimate, unconditioned cause.  Consequently the sufficient reason for the series must be situated without the world, and, as is evident from the harmony of things, can only be an infinitely wise and good Being.  Here the teleological proof comes in:  From the finality of the world we reason to the existence of a Being, as the author of the world, who works in view of ends and who wills and carries out that which is best,—­to the supreme intelligence, goodness, and power of the Creator.  A special inferential value accrues to this position from the system of pre-established harmony—­it is manifest that the complete correspondence of the manifold substances in the world, which are not connected with one another by any direct interaction, can proceed only from a common cause endowed with infinite intelligence and power.

The possibility of proving the existence of one omnipotent and all-beneficent God, and the impossibility of refuting the positive dogmas, save the harmony of faith and reason, which Bayle had denied.  The conclusion of the New Essays and the opening of the Theodicy are devoted to this theme.  The second part gives, also against Bayle, the justification of God in view of the evil in the world. Si Deus est, unde malum?  Optimism has to reckon with the facts of experience, and to show that this world, in spite of its undeniable imperfections, is still the best world.  God could certainly have brought into actuality a world in which there would have been less imperfection than in ours, but it would at the same time have contained fewer perfections.  No world whatever can exist entirely free from evil, entirely without limitation—­whoever forbids God to create imperfect beings forbids him to create a world at all.  Certain evils—­in general terms, the evil of finitude—­are entirely inseparable from the concept of created beings; imperfection attaches to every created thing as such.  Other evils God has permitted because it was only through them that certain higher goods, which ought not to be renounced, could be brought to pass.  Think of the lofty feelings, noble resolves, and great deeds which war occasions, think of national enthusiasm, readiness for sacrifice, and defiance of death—­all these would be given over, if war should be taken out of the world on account of the suffering which it also brings in its train.