216.  M. Bayle raises the further objection, that it is true that our legislators can never invent regulations such as are convenient for all individuals, ’Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est; id modo quaeritur, si majori parti et in summam prodest. (Cato apud Livium, L. 34, circa init.)’ But the reason is that the limited condition of their knowledge compels them to cling to laws which, when all is taken into account, are more advantageous than harmful.  Nothing of all that can apply to God, who is as infinite in power and understanding as in goodness and true greatness.  I answer that since God chooses the best possible, one cannot tax him with any limitation of his perfections; and in the universe not only does the good exceed the evil, but also the evil serves to augment the good.

217.  He observes also that the Stoics derived a blasphemy from this principle, saying that evils must be endured with patience, or that they were necessary, not only to the well-being and completeness of the universe, but also to the felicity, perfection and conservation of God, who directs it.  The Emperor Marcus Aurelius gave expression to that in the eighth chapter of the fifth book of his Meditations.  ‘Duplici ratione’, he says, ’diligas oportet, quidquid evenerit tibi; altera quod tibi natum et tibi coordinatum et ad te quodammodo affectum est; altera quod universi gubernatori prosperitatis et consummationis atque adeo permansionis ipsius procurandae ([Greek:  tes euodias kai tes synteleias kai tes symmones autes]) ex parte causa est.’  This precept is not the most reasonable of those stated by that great emperor.  A diligas oportet ([Greek:  stergein chre]) is of no avail; a thing does not become pleasing just because it is necessary, and because it is destined for or attached to someone:  and what for me would be an evil would not cease to be such because it would be my master’s good, unless this good reflected back on me.  One good thing among others in the universe is that the general good becomes in reality the individual good of those who love the Author of all good.  But the principal error of this emperor and of the Stoics was their assumption that the good of the universe must please God himself, because they imagined God as the soul of the world.  This error has nothing in common with my dogma, [264] according to which God is Intelligentia extramundana, as Martianus Capella calls him, or rather supramundana.  Further, he acts to do good, and not to receive it. Melius est dare quam accipere; his bliss is ever perfect and can receive no increase, either from within or from without.