something similar concerning them.  He thinks (Treatise on Prayer, book I, ch. 11) that God has so ordered things beforehand that their prayers, when they are made with a full will, always succeed:  that is an example of a pre-established harmony.  As for us, in addition to the judgement of the understanding, of which we have an express knowledge, there are mingled therewith confused perceptions of the senses, and these beget passions and even imperceptible inclinations, of which we are not always aware.  These movements often thwart the judgement of the practical understanding.

311.  As for the parallel between the relation of the understanding to the true and that of the will to the good, one must know that a clear and distinct perception of a truth contains within it actually the affirmation of this truth:  thus the understanding is necessitated in that direction.  But whatever perception one may have of the good, the effort to act in accordance with the judgement, which in my opinion forms the essence of the will, is distinct from it.  Thus, since there is need of time to raise this effort to its climax, it may be suspended, and even changed, by a new perception or inclination which passes athwart it, which diverts the mind from it, and which even causes it sometimes to make a contrary judgement.  Hence it comes that our soul has so many means of resisting the truth which it knows, and that the passage from mind to heart is so long.  Especially is this so when the understanding to a great extent proceeds only by faint thoughts, which have only slight power to affect, as I have explained elsewhere.  Thus the connexion between judgement and will is not so necessary as one might think.

312.  M. Bayle goes on to say, with truth (p. 221):  ’Indeed, it cannot be a fault in man’s soul that it has no freedom of indifference as regards good in general.  It would be rather a disorder, an inordinate imperfection, if one could say truthfully:  It is all one to me whether I am happy or unhappy; I have no more determination to love the good than to hate it; I can do both equally.  Now if it is a praiseworthy and advantageous quality to be determinate as regards good in general, it cannot be a fault if [315] one is necessitated as regards each individual good recognized plainly as for our good.  It seems even as though it were a necessary conclusion, that if the soul has no freedom of indifference as regards good in general, it also has none in respect of particular goods which after due examination it judges to be goods in relation to it.  What should we think of a soul which, having formed that judgement, had, and prided itself on having, the power not to love these goods, and even to hate them, and which said:  I recognize clearly that these are goods for me, I have all the enlightenment necessary on that point; nevertheless I will not love them, I will hate them; my decision is made, I act upon it; it is not that any reason’ (that is, any other reason than that which is founded upon ‘Such is my good pleasure’) ’urges me thereto, but it pleases me so to behave:  what should we think, I say, of such a soul?  Should we not find it more imperfect and more unhappy than if it had not this freedom of indifference?