does not see that that only proves a hypothetical impossibility?  It is true that a thing cannot exist when a requisite condition for it is lacking.  But as we claim to be able to say that the thing can exist although it does not exist, we claim in the same way to be able to say that the requisite conditions can exist although they do not exist.  Thus Mr. Hobbes’s argument leaves the matter where it is.  The opinion which was held concerning Mr. Hobbes, that he taught an absolute necessity of all things, brought upon him much discredit, and would have done him harm even had it been his only error.

173.  Spinoza went further:  he appears to have explicitly taught a blind necessity, having denied to the Author of Things understanding and will, and assuming that good and perfection relate to us only, and not to him.  It is true that Spinoza’s opinion on this subject is somewhat obscure:  for he grants God thought, after having divested him of understanding, cogitationem, non intellectum concedit Deo.  There are even passages where he relents on the question of necessity.  Nevertheless, as far as one can understand him, he acknowledges no goodness in God, properly speaking, and he teaches that all things exist through the necessity of the divine nature, without any act of choice by God.  We will not waste time here in refuting an opinion so bad, and indeed so inexplicable.  My own opinion is founded on the nature of the possibles, that is, of things that imply [235] no contradiction.  I do not think that a Spinozist will say that all the romances one can imagine exist actually now, or have existed, or will still exist in some place in the universe.  Yet one cannot deny that romances such as those of Mademoiselle de Scudery, or as Octavia, are possible.  Let us therefore bring up against him these words of M. Bayle, which please me well, on page 390, ‘It is to-day’, he says, ’a great embarrassment for the Spinozists to see that, according to their hypothesis, it was as impossible from all eternity that Spinoza, for instance, should not die at The Hague, as it is impossible for two and two to make six.  They are well aware that it is a necessary conclusion from their doctrine, and a conclusion which disheartens, affrights, and stirs the mind to revolt, because of the absurdity it involves, diametrically opposed to common sense.  They are not well pleased that one should know they are subverting a maxim so universal and so evident as this one:  All that which implies contradiction is impossible, and all that which implies no contradiction is possible.’

174.  One may say of M. Bayle, ‘ubi bene, nemo melius’, although one cannot say of him what was said of Origen, ‘ubi male, nemo pejus’.  I will only add that what has just been indicated as a maxim is in fact the definition of the possible and the impossible.  M. Bayle, however, adds here towards the end a remark which somewhat spoils his eminently reasonable statement.  ’Now