choices to which the goodness of the object prompts him.  He chooses not only to create men, but also to create men as happy as it is possible to be in this system.  After that not the least vestige of mere indifference will be left, for we can reason concerning the entire world just as we have reasoned concerning the human race.  God resolved to create a world, but he was bound by his goodness at the same time to make choice of such a world as should contain the greatest possible amount of order, regularity, virtue, happiness.  For I can see no excuse for saying that whereas God was prompted by his goodness to make the men he has resolved to create as perfect as is possible within this system, he had not the same good intention towards the whole universe.  There we have come back again to the goodness of the objects; and pure indifference, where God would act without cause, is altogether destroyed by the very procedure of our gifted author, with whom the force of truth, once the heart of the matter was reached, prevailed over a speculative hypothesis, which cannot admit of any application to the reality of things.

23.  Since, therefore, nothing is altogether indifferent to God, who knows all degrees, all effects, all relations of things, and who penetrates at one and the same time all their possible connexions, let us see whether at least the ignorance and insensibility of man can make him absolutely indifferent in his choice.  The author regales us with this pure [432] indifference as with a handsome present.  Here are the proofs of it which he gives:  (1) We feel it within us. (2) We have experience within ourselves of its marks and its properties. (3) We can show that other causes which might determine our will are insufficient.  As for the first point, he asserts that in feeling freedom within us we feel within us at the same time pure indifference.  But I do not agree that we feel such indifference, or that this alleged feeling follows upon that of freedom.  We feel usually within us something which inclines us to our choice.  At times it happens, however, that we cannot account for all our dispositions.  If we give our mind to the question, we shall recognize that the constitution of our body and of bodies in our environment, the present or previous temper of our soul, together with countless small things included under these comprehensive headings, may contribute towards our greater or lesser predilection for certain objects, and the variation of our opinions from one time to another.  At the same time we shall recognize that none would attribute this to mere indifference, or to some indefinable force of the soul which has the same effect upon objects as colours are said to have upon the chameleon.  Thus the author has no cause here to appeal to the judgement of the people:  he does so, saying that in many things the people reason better than the philosophers.  It is true that certain philosophers have been misled by chimeras, and it would seem that mere indifference