would imply contradiction?  Can it be thought that the pain and discomfort of sentient creatures, and above all the happiness and unhappiness of intelligent substances, are a matter of indifference to God?  And what shall be said of his justice?  Is it also something arbitrary, and would he have acted wisely and justly if he had resolved to condemn the innocent?  I know that there have been writers so ill-advised as to maintain an opinion so dangerous and so liable to overthrow religion.  But I am assured that our illustrious author is far from holding it.  Nevertheless, it seems as though this hypothesis tends in that direction, if there is nothing in objects save what is indifferent to the divine will before its choice.  It is true that God has need of nothing; but the author has himself shown clearly that God’s goodness, and not his need, prompted him to produce creatures.  There was therefore in him a reason anterior to the resolution; and, as I have said so many times, it was neither by chance nor without cause, nor even by necessity, that God created this world, but rather as a result of his inclination, which always prompts him to the best.  Thus it is surprising that our author should assert here (ch. 5, sect. 1, sub-sect. 4, Sec. 5) that there is no reason which could have induced God, absolutely perfect and happy in himself, to create anything outside him, although, according to the author’s previous declarations (ch. 1, sect. 3, Sec.Sec. 8, 9), God acts for an end, and his aim is to communicate his goodness.  It was therefore not altogether a matter of indifference to him whether he should create or not create, and creation is notwithstanding a free act.  Nor was it a matter of indifference to him either, whether he should create one world rather than another; a perpetual chaos, or a completely ordered system.  Thus the qualities of objects, included in their ideas, formed the reason for God’s choice.

22.  Our author, having already spoken so admirably about the beauty and fittingness of the works of God, has tried to search out phrases that would reconcile them with his hypothesis, which appears to deprive God of all consideration for the good or the advantage of creatures.  The indifference of God prevails (he says) only in his first elections, but as soon as God has chosen something he has virtually chosen, at the same time, all [430] that which is of necessity connected therewith.  There were innumerable possible men equally perfect:  the election of some from among them is purely arbitrary (in the judgement of our author).  But God, once having chosen them, could not have willed in them anything contrary to human nature.  Up to this point the author’s words are consistent with his hypothesis; but those that follow go further.  He advances the proposition that when God resolved to produce certain creatures he resolved at the same time, by virtue of his infinite goodness, to give them every possible advantage.  Nothing, indeed, could be so reasonable, but also nothing