clearly and distinctly that this knowledge and this power are in God; but we have not enough so to comprehend their scope that we can know how they leave the actions of men entirely free and undetermined.  Yet the Power and the Knowledge of God must not prevent us from believing that we have a free will; for we should be wrong to doubt of that whereof we are inwardly conscious, and which we know by experience to be within us, simply because we do not comprehend some other thing which we know to be incomprehensible in its nature.’

69.  This passage from M. Descartes, followed by his adherents (who rarely think of doubting what he asserts), has always appeared strange to me.  Not content with saying that, as for him, he sees no way of reconciling [112] the two dogmas, he puts the whole human race, and even all rational creatures, in the same case.  Yet could he have been unaware that there is no possibility of an insuperable objection against truth?  For such an objection could only be a necessary linking together of other truths whose result would be contrary to the truth that one maintains; and consequently there would be contradiction between the truths, which would be an utter absurdity.  Moreover, albeit our mind is finite and cannot comprehend the infinite, of the infinite nevertheless it has proofs whose strength or weakness it comprehends; why then should it not have the same comprehension in regard to the objections?  And since the power and the wisdom of God are infinite and comprehend everything, there is no pretext for doubting their scope.  Further, M. Descartes demands a freedom which is not needed, by his insistence that the actions of the will of man are altogether undetermined, a thing which never happens.  Finally, M. Bayle himself maintains that this experience or this inward sense of our independence, upon which M. Descartes founds the proof of our freedom, does not prove it:  for from the fact that we are not conscious of the causes whereon we depend, it does not follow, according to M. Bayle, that we are independent.  But that is something we will speak of in its proper place.

70.  It seems that M. Descartes confesses also, in a passage of his Principles, that it is impossible to find an answer to the difficulties on the division of matter to infinity, which he nevertheless recognizes as actual.  Arriaga and other Schoolmen make well-nigh the same confession:  but if they took the trouble to give to the objections the form these ought to have, they would see that there are faults in the reasoning, and sometimes false assumptions which cause confusion.  Here is an example.  A man of parts one day brought up to me an objection in the following form:  Let the straight line BA be cut in two equal parts at the point C, and the part CA at the point D, and the part DA at the point E, and so on to infinity; all the halves, BC, CD, DE, etc., together make the whole BA; therefore there must be a last half, since the straight line