is possible, without the intervention of choice founded on good, how can he make himself worthy of love?  It is therefore the doctrine either of blind power or of arbitrary power, which destroys piety:  for the one destroys the intelligent principle or the providence of God, the other attributes to him actions which are appropriate to the evil principle.  Justice in God, says Mr. Hobbes (p. 161), is nothing but the power he has, which he exercises in distributing blessings and afflictions.  This definition surprises me:  it is not the power to distribute them, but the will to distribute them reasonably, that is, goodness guided by wisdom, which makes the justice of God.  But, says he, justice is not in God as in a man, who is only just through the observance of laws made by his superior.  Mr. Hobbes is mistaken also in that, as well as Herr Pufendorf, who followed him.  Justice does not depend upon arbitrary laws of superiors, but on the eternal rules of wisdom and of goodness, in men as well as in God.  Mr. Hobbes asserts in the same passage that the wisdom which is attributed to God does not lie in a logical consideration of the relation of means to ends, but in an incomprehensible attribute, attributed to an incomprehensible nature to honour it.  It seems as if he means that it is an indescribable something attributed to an indescribable something, and even a chimerical quality given to a chimerical substance, to intimidate and to deceive the nations through the worship which they render to it.  After all, it is difficult for Mr. Hobbes to have a different opinion of God and of wisdom, since he admits only material substances.  If Mr. Hobbes were still alive, I would beware of ascribing to him opinions which might do him injury; but it [404] is difficult to exempt him from this.  He may have changed his mind subsequently, for he attained to a great age; thus I hope that his errors may not have been deleterious to him.  But as they might be so to others, it is expedient to give warnings to those who shall read the writings of one who otherwise is of great merit, and from whom one may profit in many ways.  It is true that God does not reason, properly speaking, using time as we do, to pass from one truth to the other:  but as he understands at one and the same time all the truths and all their connexions, he knows all the conclusions, and he contains in the highest degree within himself all the reasonings that we can develop.  And just because of that his wisdom is perfect.

         &nb
sp;                                                     [405]
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OBSERVATIONS ON THE BOOK CONCERNING ‘THE ORIGIN OF EVIL’ PUBLISHED RECENTLY IN LONDON

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