225.  The infinity of possibles, however great it may be, is no greater than that of the wisdom of God, who knows all possibles.  One may even say that if this wisdom does not exceed the possibles extensively, since the objects of the understanding cannot go beyond the possible, which in a sense is alone intelligible, it exceeds them intensively, by reason of the infinitely infinite combinations it makes thereof, and its many deliberations concerning them.  The wisdom of God, not content with embracing all the possibles, penetrates them, compares them, weighs them one against the other, to estimate their degrees of perfection or imperfection, the strong and the weak, the good and the evil.  It goes even beyond the finite combinations, it makes of them an infinity of infinites, that is to say, an infinity of possible sequences of the universe, each of which contains an infinity of creatures.  By this means the divine Wisdom distributes all the possibles it had already contemplated separately, into so many universal systems which it further compares the one with the other.  The result of all these comparisons and deliberations is the choice of the best from among all these possible systems, which wisdom makes in [268] order to satisfy goodness completely; and such is precisely the plan of the universe as it is.  Moreover, all these operations of the divine understanding, although they have among them an order and a priority of nature, always take place together, no priority of time existing among them.

226.  The careful consideration of these things will, I hope, induce a different idea of the greatness of the divine perfections, and especially of the wisdom and goodness of God, from any that can exist in the minds of those who make God act at random, without cause or reason.  And I do not see how they could avoid falling into an opinion so strange, unless they acknowledged that there are reasons for God’s choice, and that these reasons are derived from his goodness:  whence it follows of necessity that what was chosen had the advantage of goodness over what was not chosen, and consequently that it is the best of all the possibles.  The best cannot be surpassed in goodness, and it is no restriction of the power of God to say that he cannot do the impossible.  Is it possible, said M. Bayle, that there is no better plan than that one which God carried out?  One answers that it is very possible and indeed necessary, namely that there is none:  otherwise God would have preferred it.

227.  It seems to me that I have proved sufficiently that among all the possible plans of the universe there is one better than all the rest, and that God has not failed to choose it.  But M. Bayle claims to infer thence that God is therefore not free.  This is how he speaks on that question (ubi supra, ch. 151, p. 899):  ’I thought to argue with a man who assumed as I do that the goodness and the power of God are infinite, as well as his wisdom;