9.  Some adversary not being able to answer this argument will perchance answer the conclusion by a counter-argument, saying that the world could have been without sin and without sufferings; but I deny that then it would have been better.  For it must be known that all things are connected in each one of the possible worlds:  the universe, whatever it may be, is all of one piece, like an ocean:  the least movement extends its effect there to any distance whatsoever, even though this effect become less perceptible in proportion to the distance.  Therein God has ordered all things beforehand once for all, having foreseen prayers, good and bad actions, and all the rest; and each thing as an idea has contributed, before its existence, to the resolution that has been made upon the existence of all things; so that nothing can be changed in the universe (any more than in a number) save its essence or, if you will, save its numerical individuality.  Thus, if the smallest evil that comes to pass in the world were missing in it, it [129] would no longer be this world; which, with nothing omitted and all allowance made, was found the best by the Creator who chose it.

10.  It is true that one may imagine possible worlds without sin and without unhappiness, and one could make some like Utopian or Sevarambian romances:  but these same worlds again would be very inferior to ours in goodness.  I cannot show you this in detail.  For can I know and can I present infinities to you and compare them together?  But you must judge with me ab effectu, since God has chosen this world as it is.  We know, moreover, that often an evil brings forth a good whereto one would not have attained without that evil.  Often indeed two evils have made one great good: 

  Et si fata volunt, bina venena juvant.

Even so two liquids sometimes produce a solid, witness the spirit of wine and spirit of urine mixed by Van Helmont; or so do two cold and dark bodies produce a great fire, witness an acid solution and an aromatic oil combined by Herr Hoffmann.  A general makes sometimes a fortunate mistake which brings about the winning of a great battle; and do they not sing on the eve of Easter, in the churches of the Roman rite: 

  O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est!
  O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!

11.  The illustrious prelates of the Gallican church who wrote to Pope Innocent XII against Cardinal Sfondrati’s book on predestination, being of the principles of St. Augustine, have said things well fitted to elucidate this great point.  The cardinal appears to prefer even to the Kingdom of Heaven the state of children dying without baptism, because sin is the greatest of evils, and they have died innocent of all actual sin.  More will be said of that below.  The prelates have observed that this opinion is ill founded.  The apostle, they say (Rom. iii.