that they are mere machines.  Moreover, it is not necessary that in order to be active one should be determined only by oneself, since a thing may receive direction without receiving force.  So it is that the horse is controlled by the rider and the vessel is steered by the helm; and M. Descartes’ belief was that our body, having force in itself, receives only some direction from the soul.  Thus an active thing may receive from outside some determination or direction, capable of changing that [427] direction which it would take of itself.  Finally, even though an active substance is determined only by itself, it does not follow that it is not moved by objects:  for it is the representation of the object within it which contributes towards the determination.  Now the representation does not come from without, and consequently there is complete spontaneity.  Objects do not act upon intelligent substances as efficient and physical causes, but as final and moral causes.  When God acts in accordance with his wisdom, he is guided by the ideas of the possibles which are his objects, but which have no reality outside him before their actual creation.  Thus this kind of spiritual and moral motion is not contrary to the activity of the substance, nor to the spontaneity of its action.  Finally, even though free power were not determined by the objects, it can never be indifferent to the action when it is on the point of acting, since the action must have its origin in a disposition to act:  otherwise one will do anything from anything, quidvis ex quovis, and there will be nothing too absurd for us to imagine.  But this disposition will have already broken the charm of mere indifference, and if the soul gives itself this disposition there must needs be another predisposition for this act of giving it.  Consequently, however far back one may go, one will never meet with a mere indifference in the soul towards the actions which it is to perform.  It is true that these dispositions incline it without constraining it.  They relate usually to the objects; but there are some, notwithstanding, which arise variously a subjecto or from the soul itself, and which bring it about that one object is more acceptable than the other, or that the same is more acceptable at one time than at another.

21.  Our author continually assures us that his hypothesis is true, and he undertakes to show that this indifferent power is indeed found in God, and even that it must be attributed to him of necessity.  For (he says) nothing is to God either good or bad in creatures.  He has no natural appetite, to be satisfied by the enjoyment of anything outside him.  He is therefore absolutely indifferent to all external things, since by them he can neither be helped nor hindered; and he must determine himself and create as it were an appetite in making his choice.  And having once chosen, he will wish to abide by his choice, just as if he had been prompted thereto by