398.  I am, however, of the same opinion as Father Malebranche, that, in general, creation properly understood is not so difficult to admit as might be supposed, and that it is in a sense involved in the notion of the dependence of creatures.  ‘How stupid and ridiculous are the Philosophers!’ (he exclaims, in his Christian Meditations, 9, No. 3).  ’They assume that Creation is impossible, because they cannot conceive how God’s power [362] is great enough to make something from nothing.  But can they any better conceive how the power of God is capable of stirring a straw?’ He adds, again with great truth (No. 5), ’If matter were uncreate, God could not move it or form anything from it.  For God cannot move matter, or arrange it wisely, if he does not know it.  Now God cannot know it, if he does not give it being:  he can derive his knowledge only from himself.  Nothing can act on him or enlighten him.’

399.  M. Bayle, not content with saying that we are created continually, insists also on this other doctrine which he would fain derive thence:  that our soul cannot act.  This is the way he speaks on that matter (ch. 141, p. 765):  ‘He has too much acquaintance with Cartesianism’ (it is of an able opponent he is speaking) ’not to know with what force it has been maintained in our day that there is no creature capable of producing motion, and that our soul is a purely passive subject in relation to sensations and ideas, and feelings of pain and of pleasure, etc.  If this has not been carried as far as the volitions, that is on account of the existence of revealed truths; otherwise the acts of the will would have been found as passive as those of the understanding.  The same reasons which prove that our soul does not form our ideas, and does not stir our organs, would prove also that it cannot form our acts of love and our volitions, etc’ He might add:  our vicious actions, our crimes.

400.  The force of these proofs, which he praises, must not be so great as he thinks, for if it were they would prove too much.  They would make God the author of sin.  I admit that the soul cannot stir the organs by a physical influence; for I think that the body must have been so formed beforehand that it would do in time and place that which responds to the volitions of the soul, although it be true nevertheless that the soul is the principle of the operation.  But if it be said that the soul does not produce its thoughts, its sensations, its feelings of pain and of pleasure, that is something for which I see no reason.  In my system every simple substance (that is, every true substance) must be the true immediate cause of all its actions and inward passions; and, speaking strictly in a metaphysical sense, it has none other than those which it produces.  Those who hold a different opinion, and who make God the sole agent, are needlessly becoming involved in expressions whence they will only with difficulty extricate themselves without offence against religion; [363] moreover, they unquestionably offend against reason.