part of the sequence may be equalled by another part of the same sequence.  Besides it might be said that the whole sequence of things to infinity may be the best possible, although what exists all through the universe in each portion of time be not the best.  It might be therefore that the universe became even [254] better and better, if the nature of things were such that it was not permitted to attain to the best all at once.  But these are problems of which it is hard for us to judge.

203.  M. Bayle says (p. 1064) that the question whether God could have made things more perfect than he made them is also very difficult, and that the reasons for and against are very strong.  But it is, so it seems to me, as if one were to question whether God’s actions are consistent with the most perfect wisdom and the greatest goodness.  It is a very strange thing, that by changing the terms a little one throws doubt upon what is, if properly understood, as clear as anything can be.  The reasons to the contrary have no force, being founded only on the semblance of defects; and M. Bayle’s objection, which tends to prove that the law of the best would impose upon God a true metaphysical necessity, is only an illusion that springs from the misuse of terms.  M. Bayle formerly held a different opinion, when he commended that of Father Malebranche, which was akin to mine on this subject.  But M. Arnauld having written in opposition to Father Malebranche, M. Bayle altered his opinion; and I suppose that his tendency towards doubt, which increased in him with the years, was conducive to that result.  M. Arnauld was doubtless a great man, and his authority has great weight:  he made sundry good observations in his writings against Father Malebranche, but he was not justified in contesting those of his statements that were akin to mine on the rule of the best.

204.  The excellent author of The Search for Truth, having passed from philosophy to theology, published finally an admirable treatise on Nature and Grace.  Here he showed in his way (as M. Bayle explained in his Divers Thoughts on the Comet, ch. 234) that the events which spring from the enforcement of general laws are not the object of a particular will of God.  It is true that when one wills a thing one wills also in a sense everything that is necessarily attached to it, and in consequence God cannot will general laws without also willing in a sense all the particular effects that must of necessity be derived from them.  But it is always true that these particular events are not willed for their own sake, and that is what is meant by the expression that they are not willed by a particular and direct will.  There is no doubt that when God resolved to act outside himself, he made choice of a manner of action which should be worthy [255] of the supremely perfect Being, that is, which should be infinitely simple and uniform, but yet of an infinite productivity.  One may even suppose that this