303.  I therefore admit indifference only in the one sense, implying the same as contingency, or non-necessity.  But, as I have declared more than once, I do not admit an indifference of equipoise, and I do not think that one ever chooses when one is absolutely indifferent.  Such a choice would be, as it were, mere chance, without determining reason, whether apparent or hidden.  But such a chance, such an absolute and actual fortuity, is a chimera which never occurs in nature.  All wise men are agreed that chance is only an apparent thing, like fortune:  only ignorance of causes gives rise to it.  But if there were such a vague indifference, or rather if we were to choose without having anything to prompt us to the choice, chance would then be something actual, resembling what, according to Epicurus, took place in that little deviation of the atoms, occurring without cause or reason.  Epicurus had introduced it in order to evade necessity, and[311] Cicero with good reason ridiculed it.

304.  This deviation had a final cause in the mind of Epicurus, his aim being to free us from fate; but it can have no efficient cause in the nature of things, it is one of the most impossible of chimeras.  M. Bayle himself refutes it admirably, as we shall see presently.  And yet it is surprising that he appears to admit elsewhere himself something of like nature with this supposed deviation:  here is what he says, when speaking of Buridan’s ass (Dictionary, art.  ‘Buridan’, lit. 13):  ’Those who advocate free will properly so called admit in man a power of determining, either to the right hand or the left, even when the motives are perfectly uniform on the side of each of the two opposing objects.  For they maintain that our soul can say, without having any reason other than that of using its freedom:  “I prefer this to that, although I see nothing more worthy of my choice in the one than the other".’

305.  All those who admit a free will properly so called will not for that reason concede to M. Bayle this determination springing from an indeterminate cause.  St. Augustine and the Thomists believe that all is determined.  And one sees that their opponents resort also to the circumstances which contribute to our choice.  Experience by no means approves the chimera of an indifference of equipoise; and one can employ here the argument that M. Bayle himself employed against the Cartesians’ manner of proving freedom by the lively sense of our independence.  For although I do not always see the reason for an inclination which makes me choose between two apparently uniform courses, there will always be some impression, however imperceptible, that determines us.  The mere desire to make use of one’s freedom has no effect of specifying, or determining us to the choice of one course or the other.