292.  As this system was not known formerly, other ways were sought for emerging from this labyrinth, and the Cartesians themselves were in difficulties over the subject of free will.  They were no longer satisfied by the ‘faculties’ of the Schoolmen, and they considered that all the actions of the soul appear to be determined by what comes from without, according to the impressions of the senses, and that, ultimately, all is controlled in the universe by the providence of God.  Thence arose naturally the objection that there is therefore no freedom.  To that M. Descartes replied that we are assured of God’s providence by reason; but that we are likewise assured of our freedom by experience thereof within ourselves; and that we must believe in both, even though we see not how it is possible to reconcile them.

[305] 293.  That was cutting the Gordian knot, and answering the conclusion of an argument not by refuting it but by opposing thereto a contrary argument.  Which procedure does not conform to the laws for philosophical disputes.  Notwithstanding, most of the Cartesians contented themselves with this, albeit the inward experience they adduce does not prove their assertion, as M. Bayle has clearly shown.  M. Regis (Philos., vol. 1, Metaph., book 2, part 2, c. 22) thus paraphrases M. Descartes’ doctrine:  ’Most philosophers’, he says, ’have fallen into error.  Some, not being able to understand the relation existing between free actions and the providence of God, have denied that God was the first efficient cause of free will:  but that is sacrilegious.  The others, not being able to apprehend the relation between God’s efficacy and free actions, have denied that man was endowed with freedom:  and that is a blasphemy.  The mean to be found between these two extremes is to say’ (id. ibid., p. 485) ’that, even though we were not able to understand all the relations existing between freedom and God’s providence, we should nevertheless be bound to acknowledge that we are free and dependent upon God.  For both these truths are equally known, the one through experience, and the other through reason; and prudence forbids one to abandon truths whereof one is assured, under the pretext that one cannot apprehend all the relations existing between them and other truths well known.’

294.  M. Bayle here remarks pertinently in the margin, ’that these expressions of M. Regis fail to point out that we are aware of relations between man’s actions and God’s providence, such as appear to us to be incompatible with our freedom.’  He adds that these expressions are over-circumspect, weakening the statement of the problem.  ‘Authors assume’, he says, ’that the difficulty arises solely from our lack of enlightenment; whereas they ought to say that it arises in the main from the enlightenment which we have, and cannot reconcile’ (in M. Bayle’s opinion) ’with our Mysteries.’  That is exactly what I said at the beginning of this work, that if the Mysteries were irreconcilable with reason, and if there were unanswerable objections, far from finding the mystery incomprehensible, we should comprehend that it was false.  It is true that here there is no question of a mystery, but only of natural religion.