123.  VIII.  ’The greatest and the most substantial glory that he who is the master of others can gain is to maintain amongst them virtue, order, peace, contentment of mind.  The glory that he would derive from their unhappiness can be nothing but a false glory.’

If we knew the city of God just as it is, we should see that it is the most perfect state which can be devised; that virtue and happiness reign there, as far as is possible, in accordance with the laws of the best; that sin and unhappiness (whose entire exclusion from the nature of things reasons of the supreme order did not permit), are well-nigh nothing there in comparison with the good, and even are of service for greater good.  Now since these evils were to exist, there must needs be some appointed to be subject to them, and we are those people.  If it were others, would there not be the same appearance of evil?  Or rather, would not these others be those known as We?  When God derives some glory from the evil through having made it serve a greater good, it was proper that he should derive that glory.  It is not therefore a false glory, as would be that of a prince who overthrew his state in order to have the honour of setting it up again.

124.  IX.  ’The way whereby that master can give proof of greatest love for virtue is to cause it, if he can, to be always practised without any mixture of vice.  If it is easy for him to procure for his subjects this advantage, and nevertheless he permits vice to raise its head, save that he punishes it finally after having long tolerated it, his affection for virtue is not the greatest one can conceive; it is therefore not infinite.’

I am not yet half way through the nineteen maxims, and already I am weary of refuting, and making the same answer always.  M. Bayle multiplies unnecessarily his so-called maxims in opposition to my dogmas.  If things connected together may be separated, the parts from their whole, the human kind from the universe, God’s attributes the one from the other, power from wisdom, it may be said that God can cause virtue to be in the world without any mixture of vice, and even that he can do so easily.  But, since he has permitted vice, it must be that that order of the universe which was found preferable to every other plan required it.  One must believe that it is not permitted to do otherwise, since it is not [198] possible to do better.  It is a hypothetical necessity, a moral necessity, which, far from being contrary to freedom, is the effect of its choice. Quae rationi contraria sunt, ea nec fieri a Sapiente posse credendum est.  The objection is made here, that God’s affection for virtue is therefore not the greatest which can be conceived, that it is not infinite.  To that an answer has already been given on the second maxim, in the assertion that God’s affection for any created thing whatsoever is proportionate to the value of the thing.  Virtue