Ma ch’i principii poi non corran punto Della lor dritta via, chi veder puote? Si finalmente ogni lor moto sempre Insieme s’aggruppa, e dall’ antico Sempre con ordin certo il nuovo nasce; Ne tracciando i primi semi, fanno Di moto un tal principio, il qual poi rompa I decreti del fato, accio non segua L’una causa dell’ altra in infinito; Onde han questa, dich’ io, del fato sciolta Libera volunta, per cui ciascuno Va dove piu l’agrada?  I moti ancora Si declinan sovente, e non in tempo Certo, ne certa region, ma solo Quando e dove commanda il nostro arbitrio; Poiche senz’ alcun dubbio a queste cose Da sol principio il voler proprio, e quindi Van poi scorrendo per le membra i moti.

It is comical that a man like Epicurus, after having discarded the gods and all incorporeal substances, could have supposed that the will, which he himself takes as composed of atoms, could have had control over the atoms, and diverted them from their path, without its being possible for one to say how.

322.  Carneades, not going so far back as to the atoms, claimed to find at once in the soul of man the reason for the so-called vague indifference, assuming as reason for the thing just that for which Epicurus sought a reason.  Carneades gained nothing thereby, except that he more easily deceived careless people, in transferring the absurdity from one subject, where it is somewhat too evident, to another subject where it is easier to confuse matters, that is to say, from the body to the soul.  For most philosophers had not very distinct notions of the nature of the soul. [321] Epicurus, who composed it of atoms, was at least right in seeking the origin of its determination in that which he believed to be the origin of the soul itself.  That is why Cicero and M. Bayle were wrong to find so much fault with him, and to be indulgent towards, and even praise, Carneades, who is no less irrational.  I do not understand how M. Bayle, who was so clear-sighted, was thus satisfied by a disguised absurdity, even to the extent of calling it the greatest effort the human mind can make on this matter.  It is as if the soul, which is the seat of reason, were more capable than the body of acting without being determined by some reason or cause, internal or external; or as if the great principle which states that nothing comes to pass without cause only related to the body.

323.  It is true that the Form or the Soul has this advantage over matter, that it is the source of action, having within itself the principle of motion or of change, in a word, [Greek:  to autokineton], as Plato calls it; whereas matter is simply passive, and has need of being impelled to act, agitur, ut agat.  But if the soul is active of itself (as it indeed is), for that very reason it is not of itself absolutely indifferent to the action, like matter, and it must find in itself a ground of determination.  According to the System of Pre-established Harmony the soul finds in itself, and in its ideal nature anterior to existence, the reasons for its determinations, adjusted to all that shall surround it.  That way it was determined from all eternity in its state of mere possibility to act freely, as it does, when it attains to existence.