1.  It is a pity that M. Bayle should have seen only the reviews of this admirable work, which are to be found in the journals.  If he had read it himself and examined it properly, he would have provided us with a good opportunity of throwing light on many difficulties, which spring again and again like the head of the hydra, in a matter where it is easy to become confused when one has not seen the whole system or does not take the trouble to reason according to a strict plan.  For strictness of reasoning performs in subjects that transcend imagination the same function as figures do in geometry:  there must always be something capable of fixing our attention and forming a connexion between our thoughts.  That is why when this Latin book, so learned and so elegant of style, printed originally in London and then reprinted in Bremen, fell into my hands, I judged that the seriousness of the matter and the author’s merit required an attention which readers might fairly expect of me, since we are agreed only in regard to half of the subject.  Indeed, as the work contains five chapters, and the fifth with the appendix equals the rest in size, I have observed that the first four, where it is a question of evil in general and of physical evil in particular, are in harmony with my principles (save for a few individual passages), and that they sometimes even develop with force and eloquence some points I had treated but slightly because M. Bayle [406] had not placed emphasis upon them.  But the fifth chapter, with its sections (of which some are equal to entire chapters) speaking of freedom and of the moral evil dependent upon it, is constructed upon principles opposed to mine, and often, indeed, to those of M. Bayle; that is, if it were possible to credit him with any fixed principles.  For this fifth chapter tends to show (if that were possible) that true freedom depends upon an indifference of equipoise, vague, complete and absolute; so that, until the will has determined itself, there would be no reason for its determination, either in him who chooses or in the object; and one would not choose what pleases, but in choosing without reason one would cause what one chooses to be pleasing.

2.  This principle of choice without cause or reason, of a choice, I say, divested of the aim of wisdom and goodness, is regarded by many as the great privilege of God and of intelligent substances, and as the source of their freedom, their satisfaction, their morality and their good or evil.  The fantasy of a power to declare one’s independence, not only of inclination, but of reason itself within and of good and evil without, is sometimes painted in such fine colours that one might take it to be the most excellent thing in the world.  Nevertheless it is only a hollow fantasy, a suppression of the reasons for the caprice of which one boasts.  What is asserted is impossible, but if it came to pass it would be harmful.  This fantastic character might be attributed to some Don Juan in a St. Peter’s