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 title of ‘kind’.  Yet other circumstances 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 God, they make it clear, nevertheless, that an action like that of this prince may appear preposterous when it is detached from the circumstances indicating its cause.  All the more must one deem that God 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 God.  ’He imagines a monarch who has forbidden duels, and who, knowing for certain that two noblemen, 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, God, 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 noblemen 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 God 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 God).